*A National Book Critics Circle Award finalist*
“In clear, conversational prose, Stephen Burt unties knotty contemporary poetry in
Close Calls With Nonsense: Reading New Poetry, suggesting ways to read poems about “what matters in life.” Burt makes you want to run out to a bookstore to get in on the excitement he conveys throughout this book.”
—ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
Stephen Burt’s
Close Calls with Nonsense provokes readers into the elliptical worlds of Rae Armantrout, Paul Muldoon, C. D. Wright, and other contemporary poets whose complexities make them challenging, original, and, finally, readable. Burt’s intelligence and enthusiasm introduce both tentative and longtime poetry readers to the rewards of reading new poetry. As Burt writes in the title essay: “The poets I know don’t want to be famous people half so much as they want their best poems read; I want to help you find and read them. I write here for people who want to read more new poetry but somehow never get around to it; for people who enjoy Seamus Heaney or Elizabeth Bishop and want to know what next; for people who enjoy John Ashbery or Anne Carson but aren’t sure why; and, especially, for people who read the half-column poems in glossy magazines and ask, ‘Is that all there is?’”
PRAISE FOR STEPHEN BURT:
“Burt is one of the leading poet-critics of his own emerging generation, turning out an astonishing amount of terrific review-based criticism.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Brilliant, charming, engaging, and highly original.”
—HARVARD REVIEW (Praise for Parallel Play)
