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My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing
An invaluable companion for any writer seeking to make the writing life a more complex and cooperative venture
“Illuminating, deeply endearing essays.”—Ron Charles, Washington Post
“A lovely, loving letter to aspiring writers.”—Diego Báez, Booklist
In these intimate and eloquent meditations, the award-winning poet Carl Phillips shares lessons he has learned about the writing life, an “apprenticeship to what can never fully be mastered.” Drawing on forty years of teaching and mentoring emerging writers, he weaves his experiences as a poet with the necessary survival skills, including ambition, stamina, silence, politics, practice, audience, and community.
In the tradition of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird , Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet , and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations , this is an invaluable companion for writers at every stage of their journey. Phillips’s book serves as a partner in speculation and an invitation to embrace mystery.
“Illuminating, deeply endearing essays.”—Ron Charles, Washington Post
“A lovely, loving letter to aspiring writers.”—Diego Báez, Booklist
In these intimate and eloquent meditations, the award-winning poet Carl Phillips shares lessons he has learned about the writing life, an “apprenticeship to what can never fully be mastered.” Drawing on forty years of teaching and mentoring emerging writers, he weaves his experiences as a poet with the necessary survival skills, including ambition, stamina, silence, politics, practice, audience, and community.
In the tradition of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird , Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet , and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations , this is an invaluable companion for writers at every stage of their journey. Phillips’s book serves as a partner in speculation and an invitation to embrace mystery.
112 pages, Paperback
Published August 8, 2023
46 people are currently reading
1100 people want to read
About the author
Carl Phillips
88 books206 followersCarl Phillips is the highly acclaimed author of 10 collections of poetry.
He was born in 1959 to an Air Force family, who moved regularly throughout his childhood, until finally settling in his high-school years at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He holds degrees from Harvard University, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Boston University and taught high-school Latin for eight years.
His first book, In the Blood, won the 1992 Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize and was heralded as the work of an outstanding newcomer in the field of contemporary poetry. His other books are Cortège (1995), a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry; From the Devotions (1998), a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry; Pastoral (2000), winner of the Lambda Literary Award; The Tether, (2001), winner of the prestigious Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; Rock Harbor (2002); The Rest of Love: Poems, a 2004 National Book Award finalist, for which Phillips also won the Theodore Roethke Memorial Foundation Poetry Prize and the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Male Poetry; Riding Westward (2006); Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems, 1986-2006 (2007); and Speak Low (2009), a 2009 National Book Award finalist. Two additional titles were published in the 2003-04 academic year: a translation of Sophocles' Philoctetes came out in September 2003, and a book of essays, Coin of the Realm: Essays on the Life and Art of Poetry, was published in May 2004. Phillips is the recipient of, among others, a literature award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Witter Bynner Foundation Fellowship from the Library of Congress, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, and the Academy of American Poets Prize. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Yale Review, as well as in anthologies, including eight times in the Best American Poetry series, The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997, and The New Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poets. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004 and elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2006. He is a Professor of English and of African and Afro-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also teaches in the Creative Writing Program.
He was born in 1959 to an Air Force family, who moved regularly throughout his childhood, until finally settling in his high-school years at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He holds degrees from Harvard University, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Boston University and taught high-school Latin for eight years.
His first book, In the Blood, won the 1992 Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize and was heralded as the work of an outstanding newcomer in the field of contemporary poetry. His other books are Cortège (1995), a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry; From the Devotions (1998), a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry; Pastoral (2000), winner of the Lambda Literary Award; The Tether, (2001), winner of the prestigious Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; Rock Harbor (2002); The Rest of Love: Poems, a 2004 National Book Award finalist, for which Phillips also won the Theodore Roethke Memorial Foundation Poetry Prize and the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Male Poetry; Riding Westward (2006); Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems, 1986-2006 (2007); and Speak Low (2009), a 2009 National Book Award finalist. Two additional titles were published in the 2003-04 academic year: a translation of Sophocles' Philoctetes came out in September 2003, and a book of essays, Coin of the Realm: Essays on the Life and Art of Poetry, was published in May 2004. Phillips is the recipient of, among others, a literature award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Witter Bynner Foundation Fellowship from the Library of Congress, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, and the Academy of American Poets Prize. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Yale Review, as well as in anthologies, including eight times in the Best American Poetry series, The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997, and The New Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poets. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004 and elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2006. He is a Professor of English and of African and Afro-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also teaches in the Creative Writing Program.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
November 29, 2022
The poet Carl Phillips has just published a small collection of illuminating, deeply endearing essays about the writing life called “My Trade Is Mystery.” It's the perfect gift for any thoughtful writer, beginning or advanced.
In an essay on the role of practice, for instance, he considers the value of making mistakes: “Useful mistakes get the words on the page — footprints, as it were, as the mind staggers forward.”
So true.
In an essay on the role of practice, for instance, he considers the value of making mistakes: “Useful mistakes get the words on the page — footprints, as it were, as the mind staggers forward.”
So true.
Read
February 19, 2023Although I'm tagging this as "poetry," it's really essay writing about poetry -- or the act of writing poetry -- with some poetry quoted (though rarely) by way of example.
I've only read one Carl Phillips poetry collection, but rereading the review now, I see I discussed his love for long sentences. It holds true in his essay writing, as well. Phillips loves the long-distance runner with its fondness for dashes and commas and semicolons. As a reader, it slows you down. You have to earn the periods, in other words.
The essays are broken into seven categories: Ambition, Stamina, Silence, Politics, Practice, Audience, and Community. In my journal entry, I wonder aloud how I'd list these in order of importance to the poet specifically and writer more generally. Of course there's no single correct answer, but it'd make a statement about you, if you write.
Along the way, you'll get plenty about Carl Phillips' life as well. It stands to reason. As a writer riffing on writing, you can't help but use your own habits and thoughts as a starting reference point. To his credit, he divulges ways he has changed along the creative way. And not changed, thank you.
If you're interested in some quotes from the first essay, "Ambition," I share some in my on-line journal about the book.
As for the book itself, incredibly short at 94 pp., but again, the sentences. They'll force me back for some rereading, similar to my habit with poetry. To Phillips I can only say: Mission accomplished.
I've only read one Carl Phillips poetry collection, but rereading the review now, I see I discussed his love for long sentences. It holds true in his essay writing, as well. Phillips loves the long-distance runner with its fondness for dashes and commas and semicolons. As a reader, it slows you down. You have to earn the periods, in other words.
The essays are broken into seven categories: Ambition, Stamina, Silence, Politics, Practice, Audience, and Community. In my journal entry, I wonder aloud how I'd list these in order of importance to the poet specifically and writer more generally. Of course there's no single correct answer, but it'd make a statement about you, if you write.
Along the way, you'll get plenty about Carl Phillips' life as well. It stands to reason. As a writer riffing on writing, you can't help but use your own habits and thoughts as a starting reference point. To his credit, he divulges ways he has changed along the creative way. And not changed, thank you.
If you're interested in some quotes from the first essay, "Ambition," I share some in my on-line journal about the book.
As for the book itself, incredibly short at 94 pp., but again, the sentences. They'll force me back for some rereading, similar to my habit with poetry. To Phillips I can only say: Mission accomplished.
Read
July 20, 2023i've read a handful of essays on function of writing, but this is the first i've read on developing a more forgiving relationship between self and art. favorite essays in order - politics, practice, stamina, and ambition. writ large thinking about necessity of form and being forgiving on ourselves to allow our obsessions to shift, reshape, mutate over time as writers as our bodies and experiences change, form being the body that houses these changes. carl phillips makes a good case for being more forgiving toward ourselves as writers, developing a pure relationship to the words, for the words save. and as always, carl phillips brings it back to desire, art as beloved object, a relationship that is "symbiotic and organic, ever-changing on both sides, so how can there be mastery of what by definition never loses the ability to surprise, to change in ways we can't predict?"
February 25, 2025
A great and helpful book for writers and readers alike. Meditations indeed.
“As long as I am living in language, as I like to put it, I count it as writing. This is why reading, for example, is so important—is maybe the most important part of writing.”
“To write is to resist invisibility. By having spoken, I’ve resisted silence before again returning to it.”
“what love looked like to me at forty is nothing like how it looks at sixty.”
Tell me about it!
And the concept of writing building one on the other. The idea of writing as transformation not simply exposition. It’s all very inspiring.
Finally—“To write poems felt like finding the native language of my interior self, and discovering that I’d always known this language—I had only to speak it: so this is my name; and this here, who I am.”
“As long as I am living in language, as I like to put it, I count it as writing. This is why reading, for example, is so important—is maybe the most important part of writing.”
“To write is to resist invisibility. By having spoken, I’ve resisted silence before again returning to it.”
“what love looked like to me at forty is nothing like how it looks at sixty.”
Tell me about it!
And the concept of writing building one on the other. The idea of writing as transformation not simply exposition. It’s all very inspiring.
Finally—“To write poems felt like finding the native language of my interior self, and discovering that I’d always known this language—I had only to speak it: so this is my name; and this here, who I am.”
July 23, 2025
I’ve been slowly going through this collection of essays normally considering a quick read for me but I really wanted to sit with each of these concepts. All seven meditations take a new perspective on a different aspect of writing and being a writer and it was illuminating to see such open experiences in a different way then I think about them. On top of that, Phillips’ writing style is so expressive and specific while still feeling like he’s whispering me all his trade secrets. It was a great read and anyone who considers themselves a poet should take a look into this.
One of my favorite quotes from the section “Silence” is
“To write is to resist invisibility. By having spoken, I’ve resisted silence before again returning to it.”
One of my favorite quotes from the section “Silence” is
“To write is to resist invisibility. By having spoken, I’ve resisted silence before again returning to it.”
Read
November 24, 2023Generous nuggets of wisdom, not just applicable towards writing and any form of art making, but also to a large extent any pursuit of a skill. Undoubtedly a collection I will return to over and over again.
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August 14, 2025toda persona que escribe debería leer esto!! y cualquier persona que tenga pasiones en general, o sea lo voy a recomendar todo el rato. las frases de este autor juro que entran como miel, qué bien escritas apuff
December 18, 2022
really lovely, easy to read, and genuinely helpful. will be returning to this frequently and probably using it in classes i teach.
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July 5, 2025To create art is to create shape from the shapeless. To write is to take resistance to invisibility. This book is truly incredible for creatives looking to find new perspectives and learn about the power of understanding silence as a means to create and how to understand mastery of writing. I found great enjoyment in Phillips’s perspective on how practicing writing, with consistency and intention, can help an author write and create something that articulates what the audience of self wishes to understand and what the audience of others needs to understand from them. From the perspective of a black gay writer, someone who was navigating their sexual identity and how their identity became politicized in the culture of American literature, Carl Phillips wrote remarkably on how they manage to stay authentic to their own writing purpose, and it’s a great perspective. Overall, there are many different perspectives he discusses in how art and writing can be a valuable tool to self understanding.
June 25, 2023
One of the most important books that I have in my library.
November 19, 2022
Sometimes you find a writer who you just click with.
That one time was the cusp of that first COVID summer, when I started to read the poetic works of Carl Phillips. I knew I was reading a queer poet when I started the first book, but what I connected with more was how his work makes space for the things I don't understand. I can show up inside his work and not feel like he is giving me a language by which I can use to name these things; instead, he opens me up to the discovery of my own language.
Since then I've read many of his books of poetry and one book of essays on the art of "daring" and "risk" when writing. So of course I was anticipating his new book of essays ("meditations") on the writing life, *My Trade Is Mystery*. And let me tell you, it's awesome.
Carl, like me also a teacher, offered up the word "mystery" when I attended an online workshop he was leading that lockdown summer. It is a word, like the word "surprise" many many years ago, that has cracked open a new way to teach poetry---not as something to figure out like a puzzle, but as something much more complex and elusive and delicate and wild.
In seven intimate, personable essays, Carl shares his thoughts not just on the unique "footprint" that is personal style and voice, but on what commitment to being poet and artist can look like. ("Can" being the key word here.) These are not lectures or treatises. But they are useful offerings, they are encouragement, they are lovely reflections.
I think all my writer friends would enjoy what Phillips has to offer here, but this is a book about opening US ALL to our potential as creators. So many of us burn with stories inside of us---but we don't trust ourselves or the process. Phillips has been a quiet role model of mine through his work and through Instagram for a few years (and I will forever imagine him singing Dionne Warwick's "Walk On By" in his kitchen during his lockdown cooking show---I can't help it); now he can be yours too!
That one time was the cusp of that first COVID summer, when I started to read the poetic works of Carl Phillips. I knew I was reading a queer poet when I started the first book, but what I connected with more was how his work makes space for the things I don't understand. I can show up inside his work and not feel like he is giving me a language by which I can use to name these things; instead, he opens me up to the discovery of my own language.
Since then I've read many of his books of poetry and one book of essays on the art of "daring" and "risk" when writing. So of course I was anticipating his new book of essays ("meditations") on the writing life, *My Trade Is Mystery*. And let me tell you, it's awesome.
Carl, like me also a teacher, offered up the word "mystery" when I attended an online workshop he was leading that lockdown summer. It is a word, like the word "surprise" many many years ago, that has cracked open a new way to teach poetry---not as something to figure out like a puzzle, but as something much more complex and elusive and delicate and wild.
In seven intimate, personable essays, Carl shares his thoughts not just on the unique "footprint" that is personal style and voice, but on what commitment to being poet and artist can look like. ("Can" being the key word here.) These are not lectures or treatises. But they are useful offerings, they are encouragement, they are lovely reflections.
I think all my writer friends would enjoy what Phillips has to offer here, but this is a book about opening US ALL to our potential as creators. So many of us burn with stories inside of us---but we don't trust ourselves or the process. Phillips has been a quiet role model of mine through his work and through Instagram for a few years (and I will forever imagine him singing Dionne Warwick's "Walk On By" in his kitchen during his lockdown cooking show---I can't help it); now he can be yours too!
March 14, 2025
finished “my trade is a mystery” by Carl Phillips today. The kind of book I needed back then, as a young writer, and grateful to have today. In My trade, Phillips explores writing and the writing life through seven different themes (community, silence, audience, politics, practice, stamina, and ambition). What it means to write, when years have gone by, when you’re not writing and going on an afternoon walk. What I love about his writing is that it’s just, oh I don’t know, honest? Sweet? Kind? This book felt kind to me. Phillips wrote about how he writes looking for companionship, for a partner, and I felt that, reading this book. I read this book and I thought, I can see you kissing your partner on the forehead and how it’s a poem, cracking en egg, paying for a book, all of it, poems. The kind of book that shows that Carl Phillips is both writer and teacher. So yes, I loved it.
March 21, 2023
Stunning.
January 19, 2024
This is powerful fuel to any writer’s fire.
May 28, 2024
Useful framework of tools for Writers and the rest of us.
Nice combination of DIY Manual and Thought Piece not just for professional Poets and Writers but enjoyable for anyone who wants to embark on a project. His insights are often very personal but that only conveys a sense of Humanity and Authenticity that Readers will appreciate.
Four Stars. ****
Nice combination of DIY Manual and Thought Piece not just for professional Poets and Writers but enjoyable for anyone who wants to embark on a project. His insights are often very personal but that only conveys a sense of Humanity and Authenticity that Readers will appreciate.
Four Stars. ****
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December 17, 2024carl phillips!
March 17, 2023
Loved reading this. Gem of a book.
July 29, 2023
loved this. rtc
June 19, 2023
A lovely, accessible reflection on the ways that writing and reading can — and should — matter.
October 18, 2023
I like to judge craft books by how anxious I feel after reading them. After this book, I didn't feel anxious at all and in fact felt quite nice about choosing to write poems during my life.
March 2, 2025
Reaaaally great, 4.5
“To acknowledge limits to what we can know about a thing—to acknowledge mystery—is not, to my mind, an admission of defeat by mystery but instead a show of respect for it, and to this extent—I mean this as secularly as possible—it’s a form of faith.”
“All art springs from a human impulse, if not to resolve what’s not resolvable, then to contain, if only temporarily, what resists containment.”
“Each time I write a poem, I feel as if I’ve laid something to rest, arrived at the stability of having understood a thing. But the satisfaction is temporary, since what I sought to hold in place is as restless as I am.”
“In this way, ambition is a form of faith, a belief in any given subject’s knowability, a belief in art’s ability to know.”
“In this way, silence is a lot like writing, I think: relative, and private, powerful in its intimacy, which has its own power to be deployed or withheld, depending—maybe equally?”
“As long as I am living in language, as I like to put it, I count it as writing. This is why reading, for example, is so important—is maybe the most important part of writing.”
“I’m writing because that’s how I make sense of my life, that’s all.”
“To acknowledge limits to what we can know about a thing—to acknowledge mystery—is not, to my mind, an admission of defeat by mystery but instead a show of respect for it, and to this extent—I mean this as secularly as possible—it’s a form of faith.”
“All art springs from a human impulse, if not to resolve what’s not resolvable, then to contain, if only temporarily, what resists containment.”
“Each time I write a poem, I feel as if I’ve laid something to rest, arrived at the stability of having understood a thing. But the satisfaction is temporary, since what I sought to hold in place is as restless as I am.”
“In this way, ambition is a form of faith, a belief in any given subject’s knowability, a belief in art’s ability to know.”
“In this way, silence is a lot like writing, I think: relative, and private, powerful in its intimacy, which has its own power to be deployed or withheld, depending—maybe equally?”
“As long as I am living in language, as I like to put it, I count it as writing. This is why reading, for example, is so important—is maybe the most important part of writing.”
“I’m writing because that’s how I make sense of my life, that’s all.”
September 24, 2023
I really enjoy the length of this book and the intentionality of “meditations”, this book is truly an insightful look at Philips’ process and mind. I will say, however, that as the book went on I found the sentence structures continually confusing and unreadable. There’s also a balance when you’re creating this kind of book and I think the writer went too far, and became really indulgent in sharing his own grandiose ideas.
Additionally, towards the very end of the book the author shared about his experience being “ousted” from a Black writers collective and the story amounted to the classic “all the black kids hate me” or “I’m not black enough for the black kids” argument that we hear so often from people with mixed racial backgrounds. It’s boring. It’s tired. And I would expect someone who has been writing for this long to be more cognizant of the harm of these ideas.
I really enjoy Carl Philips poetry and I’m happy for him that he gets to share these deeper thoughts with the world, but the book was absolutely not for me.
Additionally, towards the very end of the book the author shared about his experience being “ousted” from a Black writers collective and the story amounted to the classic “all the black kids hate me” or “I’m not black enough for the black kids” argument that we hear so often from people with mixed racial backgrounds. It’s boring. It’s tired. And I would expect someone who has been writing for this long to be more cognizant of the harm of these ideas.
I really enjoy Carl Philips poetry and I’m happy for him that he gets to share these deeper thoughts with the world, but the book was absolutely not for me.
August 29, 2023
I really enjoyed this collection of essays (or meditations). I hadn't planned on reading it, but it came at a serendipitous time for what Carl Phillips offers in these essays is what I needed to read.
Aside from the resonance on a writing/writer level, I also felt personally connected with the human behind the mystery, the words, and the ruminations -- Phillips' thoughts on how we come to writing, how/why we write and continue to sustain this effort/pursuit, negotiating with internal and external tensions, identities, and perceptions, understanding value vs. resonance or usefulness, and navigating the fallacy of conflating outside validation/recognition/supposed love for inherent value and purpose of writing == lots of gems that spoke to me, and which I'll be revisiting continuously.
It's a short read with much to offer and cogitate on. I'm looking forward to exploring more of Carl Phillips' works, both poetry and otherwise.
Aside from the resonance on a writing/writer level, I also felt personally connected with the human behind the mystery, the words, and the ruminations -- Phillips' thoughts on how we come to writing, how/why we write and continue to sustain this effort/pursuit, negotiating with internal and external tensions, identities, and perceptions, understanding value vs. resonance or usefulness, and navigating the fallacy of conflating outside validation/recognition/supposed love for inherent value and purpose of writing == lots of gems that spoke to me, and which I'll be revisiting continuously.
It's a short read with much to offer and cogitate on. I'm looking forward to exploring more of Carl Phillips' works, both poetry and otherwise.
May 9, 2023
My Trade is Mystery is like a guide taking the reader by the hand and leading with such clarity, openness, and precision that it's easy to follow in its steps to discovery, but, like any good guide, it leaves the discovering to the reader. The essays are not how-tos, but rather vessels for your own thoughts. They make the mystery of the creative process accessible by staking out some parameters without defining how mystery manifests itself in writing and art, without limiting its mysteriousness in any way that is. I almost immediately entered into dialogue with Phillips's thoughts and presentations, and my copy of the book is heavily annotated as a consequence. Reading it has been a clarifying experience, demystifying in a good way, one helping me on my way to find the poet I am.
October 14, 2024
- practice and community were my favorites, and i liked silence and audience too
- lots of ideas that i related to, but the one that most uniquely stood out to me was writing as a private hobby for him (this felt so revelatory, compared to so many people that seem to share as a first impulse), and the way he talked about the value of community (which ive heard so many times, but never as clearly as from him). i also liked his thoughts around developing a "practice," and what that word actually refers to
- but i dont think his writing style is for me, a lot of words to say the same thing, and such loooooooong sentences
- read mostly as an ebook on my phone on the subway !
- 3.5 stars, but rounding up in my rating bc i think its worth reading !
- lots of ideas that i related to, but the one that most uniquely stood out to me was writing as a private hobby for him (this felt so revelatory, compared to so many people that seem to share as a first impulse), and the way he talked about the value of community (which ive heard so many times, but never as clearly as from him). i also liked his thoughts around developing a "practice," and what that word actually refers to
- but i dont think his writing style is for me, a lot of words to say the same thing, and such loooooooong sentences
- read mostly as an ebook on my phone on the subway !
- 3.5 stars, but rounding up in my rating bc i think its worth reading !
November 12, 2024
Ugh. I really enjoy Carl Phillips's poetry, so this was doubly disappointing. Said so much without saying anything at all (let's couch every shadow of a point in endless metaphor and contrived musing so that we never get to the point at all!), and even the points that were made were nothing I hadn't already thought about myself. I don't know if this is something specific to Carl Phillips or something that plagues poets more generally (probably the latter), but any time a poet tries to write about poetry, or just in prose, it always comes out so pretentious and self-affected. Just give it to me straight! And say what you want to say. I promise all these obfuscatory shenanigans do not make you sound any more endearing, or enlightened.
October 20, 2024
In My Trade is Mystery, Carl Phillips shares a lifetime of wisdom on what nourishes and sustains a life as an artist, and more specifically life as a poet. To be an artist requires a restless drive to make ark from the human impulse to "contain, if only temporarily, what resists containment." It requires a way of living in the world and living in language: "everything we do is at some level research for the next poem." It requires a regular practice of writing (and breaks, silence), but perhaps more importantly, a regular practice of living life attentively. For its wisdom, for its sincerity, for its intimacy, I'm so grateful for this book.
November 25, 2022
This book was like a favorite blanket, cup of warm coffee, fuzzy slippers on winter nights… yes, as a lonely person with her aspirations as a writer this book made me feel understood, accompanied, legitimized (if I could say it) and just welcomed. Welcomed where, I don’t even know.. in this world, I guess? Made me realize I’m not as strange as my “friends” have made me believe or maybe that being strange is a good thing. Anyway… I needed to read this book so much I didn’t even know I did. Thank you Carl Philips…
April 16, 2025
kind of a brief memoir on a life in poetry. on books about poetry, my favorite topics are either on the craft of poetry or the joy a poem can bring. this book tackles neither in depth, and is more about how Carl Phillips operates as a poet. For that, I would advise reading his collection of poems Then The War before this. Perhaps the suggestion here is that the mystery is in the work itself, and this is just the trade. Still good, but would recommend checking it out at a library before purchasing a copy
August 12, 2023
Written as a companion for writers facing similar challenges with their art, prize winning poet and professor, Carl Phillips shares his personal understanding of a writer's life. The meditations include hints for other writers: write as an extension of self. Learn to articulate personal thoughts; obtain fluency; don't be overly self-conscious of what I am physically doing; don't be hampered by what others think; and read good writing. Phillips's writing is good!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews