Jan Schreiber

Sparring with the Sun: Poets and the Ways We Think about Poetry in the Late Days of Modernism Jan Schreiber

In this lively book presenting six of the most influential poets of the late twentieth century, Jan Schreiber argues convincingly that the strongest and most lasting poems were written in meter, rather than the free verse that dominated the scene for much of the period. With fresh looks at the work of Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Howard Nemerov, Anthony Hecht, W. D. Snodgrass, and Richard Wilbur, these essays give readers new insights into the strategies poets use to fuse sound and sense together in memorable ways. Later chapters take a close look at the work of additional poets considered important by influential editors and critics, and offer a re-evaluation of some reputations that have suffered from neglect in recent years. Enlivened with plentiful quotations and supported by close and perceptive readings, this book is an invaluable guide through the challenging forest of twentieth-century poetry in the postwar period. A model of evaluative criticism, it also offers illuminating essays on artistic judgment and on the functions of poetry in a diverse, contentious, and changing society.