Jorie Graham: Essays on the Poetry

by Thomas Gardner (Editor), Lynn Keller (Editor), Adalaide Morris (Editor)

Jorie Graham is one of the most important American poets now writing. This first book-length study brings together thirteen previously published essays and review essays by many of the major critics currently interested in her work and five new essays commissioned for this volume. Commenting on each of Graham's eight poetry collections, these essays encompass the range of critical thought that her work has attracted, both surveying it broadly and engaging closely with individual poems.
These essays identify three broad concerns that run through each of her strikingly different volumes of the movement of the mind in action, the role of the body in experiencing the world, and the pressures of material conditions on mind and body alike. Gardner both shows how Graham is being read at the moment and charts new areas of investigation likely to dominate thinking about her over the next decade. This collection is sure to become the crucial first step for all future work on Graham and on American poetry of the last two decades.

Genres: Poetry

305 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

goes into thorough (at times exhaustive) detail into the philosophical undertakings of Graham's poetry. Anne Shifrer's take on "Fission" offers much clarity in its analysis on cinema and the intermingling of private and public spheres. Calvin Bedient's "Towards a Jorie Graham Lexicon" is my favorite essay from the book; it reads like a literary tussle between 2 seasoned critics at the corner bar.