Margins
Conversation Pieces book cover
Conversation Pieces
2007
First Published
4.07
Average Rating
256
Number of Pages

This utterly delightful anthology gathers poetic responses to other poems in a dialogue conducted across space and time. Here are poems that answer, argue with, update, elaborate on, mock, interrogate, or pay tribute to poems of the past. We hear Leda's view of the Swan; feel sympathy for La Belle Dame sans Merci, and find out how Marvell's coy mistress might have answered his appeal. Raleigh's famous reply to Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" sparked a centuries-long debate that John Donne, William Carlos Williams, C. Day Lewis, and Ogden Nash could not resist joining. In these pages we see Denise Levertov respond to Wordsworth, Randall Jarrell to Auden, Ogden Nash to Byron, Donald Justice to César Vallejo. We also see contemporary poets responding to their peers with the same intriguing mix of admiration and impatience. Whether they offer approbation or reproof, the pleasures of a jazz riff or a completely different perspective, these remarkable poems are not only engaging themselves but also capable of casting surprising new light on the poems that inspired them.

Avg Rating
4.07
Number of Ratings
54
5 STARS
39%
4 STARS
31%
3 STARS
28%
2 STARS
2%
1 STARS
0%
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Author

Harold Schechter
Harold Schechter
Author · 41 books

Aka Jon A. Harrald (joint pseudonym with Jonna Gormley Semeiks) Harold Schechter is a true crime writer who specializes in serial killers. He attended the State University of New York in Buffalo, where he obtained a Ph.D. A resident of New York City, Schechter is professor of American literature and popular culture at Queens College of the City University of New York. Among his nonfiction works are the historical true-crime classics Fatal, Fiend, Deviant, Deranged, and Depraved. He also authors a critically acclaimed mystery series featuring Edgar Allan Poe, which includes The Hum Bug and Nevermore and The Mask of Red Death. Schechter is married to poet Kimiko Hahn. He has two daughters from a previous marriage: the writer Lauren Oliver and professor of philosophy Elizabeth Schechter.

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