In this Book
- Acts of Mind: Conversations with Contemporary Poets
- Book
- 2014
- Published by: The University of Alabama Press
summary
A good poem is, to borrow from Wallace Stevens, a “poem of the mind in the act of finding / What will suffice” (“Of Modern Poetry”), a poem of the mind that both thinks and feels
Acts of Mind grew out of interviews conducted by the author for Poetry Miscellany. The aim of which was to help develop a method for talking about the work of contemporary poets.
The poets whose views appear in this volume represent a fair cross-section of the more important tendencies and impulses to be found in contemporary poetry and poetics.
Acts of Mind grew out of interviews conducted by the author for Poetry Miscellany. The aim of which was to help develop a method for talking about the work of contemporary poets.
The poets whose views appear in this volume represent a fair cross-section of the more important tendencies and impulses to be found in contemporary poetry and poetics.
Table of Contents

- Untelling the Hour (Mark Strand)
- pp. 13-18
- Stepping into the Sky (Carol Muske)
- pp. 39-47
- Unnaming the Myths (W. S. Merwin)
- pp. 48-52
- Doubling the Difference (Heather McHugh)
- pp. 93-100
- Questions of Will (Robert Pack)
- pp. 101-106
- Settling in Another Field (Maxine Kumin)
- pp. 107-112
- Living the Layers of Time (Stanley Kunitz)
- pp. 113-119
- Double Vision (Daniel Mark Epstein)
- pp. 120-125
- Emergencies of the Moment (William Stafford)
- pp. 126-131
- The Languages of Illusion (Dara Wier)
- pp. 132-139
- Before the Beginning (Donald Finkel)
- pp. 146-152
- On the Margins of Dreams (Fred Chappell)
- pp. 153-157
- Unbreakable Codes (Linda Pastan)
- pp. 158-163
- Projecting the Literal Word (Robert Creeley)
- pp. 164-171
- Answering the Dark (David Ignatow)
- pp. 172-177
- Shaping Our Choices (Marge Piercy)
- pp. 178-182
- On the Periphery of Time (Donald Hall)
- pp. 191-195
- The Candle in the Pitcher (John Hollander)
- pp. 196-205
- Selected Bibliography
- pp. 206-212
Additional Information
ISBN
9780817388638
Related ISBN(s)
9780817301224, 9780817302283
MARC Record
OCLC
561286967
Pages
234
Launched on MUSE
2016-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No
Copyright
1984