In this Book
- Companion Spider: Essays
- Book
- 2010
- Published by: Wesleyan University Press
summary
Companion Spider is the accumulated work of a poet and translator who goes more deeply into the art and its process and demands than anyone since Robert Duncan. Clayton Eshleman is one of our most admired and controversial poets, the translator of such great international poets as César Vallejo, Aimé Césaire and Antonin Artaud, and founder and editor of two important literary magazines, Sulfur and Caterpillar. As such, Eshleman writes about the vocation of poet and of the poet as translator as no one else in America today; he believes adamantly that art must concern itself with vision, and that poets learn best by an apprenticeship that is a kind of immersion in the work of other poets.
Companion Spider opens with a unique eighty page essay called "Novices: A Study of Poetic Apprenticeship" addressed to the poet who is just starting out. Subsequent sections take up the art of translation, poets and their work, and literary magazine editing. The title is drawn from an extraordinary visionary experience which the author had, which becomes a potent metaphor for the creative process. Through the variety of poets and artists to whom he pays homage, Eshleman suggests a community which is not of a single place or time; rather, there is mutual recognition and responsiveness, so that the reader becomes aware of a range of artistic practices s/he might explore
Ebook Edition Note: The essay, “Gull Wall,” has been redacted.
Companion Spider opens with a unique eighty page essay called "Novices: A Study of Poetic Apprenticeship" addressed to the poet who is just starting out. Subsequent sections take up the art of translation, poets and their work, and literary magazine editing. The title is drawn from an extraordinary visionary experience which the author had, which becomes a potent metaphor for the creative process. Through the variety of poets and artists to whom he pays homage, Eshleman suggests a community which is not of a single place or time; rather, there is mutual recognition and responsiveness, so that the reader becomes aware of a range of artistic practices s/he might explore
Ebook Edition Note: The essay, “Gull Wall,” has been redacted.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- I
- II
- The Gull Wall
- pp. 79-92
- Remarks to a Poetry Workshop
- pp. 93-96
- The Lorca Working
- pp. 97-116
- Companion Spider
- pp. 117-128
- III
- A Tribute to Américo Ferrari
- pp. 147-152
- A Translational Understanding of Trilce #I
- pp. 153-160
- Introduction to Watchfiends & Rack Screams
- pp. 161-194
- Artaud’s True Family, Glimpsed at Pompidou
- pp. 195-200
- IV
- A Note on the Death of Paul Celan
- pp. 203-206
- Padgett the Collaborator
- pp. 211-221
- Spider Sibyls
- pp. 222-227
- V
- The Gospel According to Norton
- pp. 231-246
- Complexities of Witness
- pp. 247-261
- “What Is American About American Poetry?”
- pp. 262-265
- The Lawless Germinal Element
- pp. 266-269
- VI
- Medusa Dossier: Clayton Eshleman (1999)
- pp. 317-333
- About the author
- p. 335
Additional Information
ISBN
9780819570581
Related ISBN(s)
9780819564825
MARC Record
OCLC
728274327
Pages
352
Launched on MUSE
2012-08-22
Language
English
Open Access
No