Research Catalog

Title

Dear editor : a history of Poetry in letters : the first fifty years, 1912-1962 / edited and compiled by Joseph Parisi and Stephen Young ; introductions and commentary by Joseph Parisi ; foreword by Billy Collins.

Publication

New York : W.W. Norton, [2002], ©2002.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Parisi, Joseph, 1944-
• Young, Stephen, 1960-

Description

xix, 473 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

• "Poignant, hilarious, and brutally frank, Dear Editor reveals the personalities and untold stories behind the creation of modern poetry.".
• "Founded in 1912, Poetry became famous immediately by printing revolutionary poems by Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, T. S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, and many other then-unknown but now-classic authors. Over nine decades, Poetry has presented virtually every significant poet of the twentieth century - often for the first time - becoming a legend and, as Eliot said, "an American Institution."".
• "Dear Editor gathers over 600 surprisingly candid letters to and from the editors of Poetry to reveal the behind-the-scenes stories in the development of American poetry: Ezra Pound's opinion of T. S. Eliot ("It is such a comfort to meet a man and not have to tell him to wash his face, wipe his feet") and Robert Frost ("dull as ditch water ... [but] set to be 'literchure' someday"); Edna St.
• Vincent Millay's pleas for an advance ("I am become very, very thin, and have taken to smoking Virginia tobacco"); Wallace Stevens on himself ("I have a pretty well-developed mean streak")." "Over sixty illustrations - author photographs, reproductions of original letters, and cartoons - further enliven this unusually rich cultural history."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• American poetry > 20th century > History and criticism
• Monroe, Harriet, 1860-1936 > Contributions in editing
• Periodicals > Publishing > Illinois > Chicago > History > 20th century
• Editors > United States > Correspondence
• Poetry (Chicago, Ill.)
• Rago, Henry, 1915-1969 > Correspondence
• Shapiro, Karl, 1913-2000 > Correspondence
• Monroe, Harriet, 1860-1936 > Correspondence
• Literature publishing > Illinois > Chicago > History > 20th century

Note

• Includes index.

Contents

Foreword / Billy Collins -- Ch. I. Beginning Again -- Ch. II. The View from Cass Street -- Ch. III. The View from Church Walk -- Ch. IV. The Editor and the Impresario at Odds -- Ch. V. Recognition and Romance -- Ch. VI. American Modernism: William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and Others -- Ch. VII. Amy Lowell, Ezra Pound, and "Amygisme" -- Ch. VIII. Poetry on the Ascendant, Pound in Decline -- Ch. IX. Departures, 1916-1919 -- Ch. X. World War I and the Aftermath -- Ch. XI. Another New Generation, 1918-1922 -- Ch. XII. The Twenties -- Ch. XIII. The Depression Years, 1930-1936 -- Ch. XIV. Passing the Torch, 1936-1941 -- Ch. XV. World War II -- Ch. XVI. Period of Adjustments, 1944-1949 -- Ch. XVII. Karl Shapiro: 1950-1955 -- Ch. XVIII. Henry Rago: The Early Years, 1955-1962.

ISBN

0393050920 (hardcover)

LCCN

2002010991

OCLC

• ocm50205579
• SCSB-4313045

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries