Surviving Artistry

by Allison Joseph

A book of poems about artistic doubt and rising above it.

Genres: Poetry

36 pages, Paperback

Published July 12, 2017

About the author

Allison Joseph (born 1967) is an American poet, editor and professor. She is author of six poetry collections, most recently, My Father's Kites: Poems (Steel Toe Books, 2010).

Born in London to parents of Jamaican heritage, Allison Joseph grew up in Toronto, Canada, and the Bronx. She graduated from Kenyon College with a B.A., and from Indiana University with an M.F.A. She teaches at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and is Director of the Young Writers Workshop at SIUC, which she founded in 1999: a four-day summer program for high school students. Many of SIUC's creative writing faculty and graduate students are involved with the workshop, and the student participants come from several states. In 1995, she was one of the founding editors of Crab Orchard Review as the magazine's poetry editor and has also worked as editor-in-chief since August 2001. She lives in Carbondale, Illinois.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Jennifer Kanke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me feel less along in my work, especially the poem "Unpopular." A chapbook using meter and rhyme, this collection is the first from a new press for women writing in form. I look forward to seeing future collections from the press.

[Maura Alia Badji · Rating 5 out of 5]

Graceful Balance of Form and Substance

Like gorgeous beads expertly strung, Alison Joseph's poems in Surviving Artistry shine. I especially admire the three ghazals towards the book's end.

[Cooch · Rating 4 out of 5]

All good.

For me some of the poems seemed too contrived to be great, yet they were all, at least, good. There were one or two very good poems too. There were some excellent lines and phrases.