Craft: A Memoir

by Tony Trigilio

An exploration of the writer's craft through a series of short, linked personal essays. Each chapter features an anecdote from the author's development as a writer that illustrates craft elements central to his body of work. An exploration of the writer's craft through a series of short, linked personal essays. Each chapter features an anecdote from the author's development as a writer that illustrates craft elements central to his body of work. A MEMOIR is an effort to understand craft through discussions of the direct experience of writing itself--through stories of how Trigilio became a writer. When we talk about "craft" as writers, we frequently focus on clinical, literary-dictionary terms such as language, narrative, structure, image, tone, and voice, among others. "In CRAFT, Tony Trigilio provides an inside look into his progression as a poet--from a 'middling, utilitarian, rust-belt' childhood to an accomplished professor of creative writing. With side steps into journalism and music, Trigilio's true north remains poetry. He learns about craft and persistence from his teachers (Mrs. Omark--4th grade) and his college profs and his grad school roommate Mitch Evich whose rigorous routine allows him to finish his novel. Trigilio continues to practice discipline and time-management alongside his wife Liz, also a writer. He meditates and keeps a journal. As he chronicles his own projects--from pop culture to history--Trigilio gives us an behind-the-desk view of one of our most celebrated American poets. A fascinating read."--Denise Duhamel Literary Nonfiction. Poetics. Essays. Memoir.

110 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2024

About the author

Tony Trigilio is the author and editor of seventeen books, including, most recently, The Punishment Book (BlazeVOX [books], 2024), the fourth installment in his multivolume poem, The Complete Dark Shadows (of My Childhood); Craft: A Memoir (Marsh Hawk Press, 2023); and Proof Something Happened, selected by Susan Howe as the winner of the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize (2021). A volume of his selected poems, Fuera del Taller del Cosmos, was published in Guatemala in 2018 by Editorial Poe (translated by Bony Hernández). His books of poetry also include Ghosts of the Upper Floor (BlazeVOX, 2019), White Noise (Apostrophe Books, 2013), and Historic Diary (BlazeVOX, 2011), among others. He is editor of Elise Cowen: Poems and Fragments (Ahsahta Press, 2014; new edition forthcoming, 2025, from BlazeVOX) and Dispatches from the Body Politic: Interviews with Jan Beatty, Meg Day, and Douglas Kearney (Essay Press, 2016). Trigilio is the author of the critical monographs Allen Ginsberg's Buddhist Poetics (second edition released in paperback by Southern Illinois University Press in 2012) and "Strange Prophecies Anew" (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000). With Erik Mortenson, he co-edited the essay collection The Beats and the Academy: A Renegotiation (Clemson University Press / Liverpool University Press, 2023); and with Tim Prchal, he co-edited the literature anthology Visions and Divisions: American Immigration Literature, 1870-1930 (Rutgers University Press, 2008).

His poems have been anthologized widely, including The Best American Poetry (ed. Elaine Equi; Scribner, 2023); Wherever I’m At: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry (After Hours Press, 2022); The Eloquent Poem (Persea Books, 2019); The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks (University of Arkansas Press, 2017); Poems Dead and Undead (Knopf/Everyman's Library, 2014); Obsessions: Sestinas in the Twenty-First Century (Dartmouth College Press, 2014); The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta, 2012); A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry (University of Akron Press, 2012); and Villanelles (Knopf/Everyman's Library, 2012), among others. His critical essays have appeared in the collections Reconstructing the Beats (ed. Jennie Skerl; Palgrave/MacMillan, 2004) and Girls Who Wore Black: Women Writing the Beat Generation (Rutgers University Press, 2002). His articles and book reviews have appeared in journals such as American Literature, Another Chicago Magazine, Boston Review, The Journal of Beat Studies, Modern Language Studies, Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, The William Carlos Williams Review, and others.

Trigilio co-founded the poetry journal Court Green in 2004, and was an associate editor for Tupelo Quarterly from 2017-2021. He is Poetry Editor and Nonfiction Co-Editor of Allium, A Journal of Poetry & Prose. A past recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry, he lives in Chicago.

Reviews

[Craig Barner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tony Trigilio was a journalism major at Kent State University in the 1980s, but, wanting to be an author, had decided to switch to being an English literature major. Sharing his decision with a hard-bitten journalism professor, he listened to him call English teachers "a dime a dozen." Trigilio responded, "And journalists aren't?"

It was that kind of moxie that caught my attention when I heard Trigilio share this story from Craft: A Memoir at a literary festival. I decided to get the book there. As a journalist for 31 years, I have always wanted to be a real writer.

Trigilio's essayistic book on writing in a good addition on any budding writer's bookshelf. His memories of late writer Mitch Evich are excellent. He notes that Evich found a writing session must be "intentionally planned." It isn't enough to sit down and hope the inspiration comes. Writing is about work, work, work. Though this point has been made before, it gets a fresh airing with Trigilio. He heightens the importance about intentionality by writing about the importance of obstinacy and writing. These are good pep talks.

Trigilio also makes great points about about meditation and its relationship to good writing. I am thinking about incorporating this practice in my own process.

The book goes a bit off track in the middle, as Trigilio writes about his love for esoterica and how he incorporated this into poems about alien abduction and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I struggled to follow these sections.