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We Begin in Gladness: How Poets Progress
One of our most perceptive critics on the ways that poets develop poems, a career, and a life
Though it seems, at first, like an art of speaking, poetry is an art of listening. The poet trains to hear clearly and, as much as possible, without interruption, the voice of his or her mind, the voice that gathers, packs with meaning, and unpacks the language he or she knows. It can take a long time to learn to let this voice speak without getting in its way. This slow learning, the growth of this habit of inner attentiveness, is poetic development, and it is the substance of the poet’s art. Of course, this growth is rarely steady, never linear, and is sometimes not actually growth but diminishment—that’s all part of the compelling story of a poet’s way forward.
—from the Introduction
“The staggering thing about a life’s work is it takes a lifetime to complete,” Craig Morgan Teicher writes in these luminous essays. We Begin in Gladness considers how poets start out, how they learn to hear themselves, and how some offer us that rare, glittering lasting work. Teicher traces the poetic development of the works of Sylvia Plath, John Ashbery, Louise Glück, and Francine J. Harris, among others, to illuminate the paths they forged—by dramatic breakthroughs or by slow increments, and always by perseverance. We Begin in Gladness is indispensable for readers curious about the artistic life and for writers wondering how they might light out—or even scale the peak of the mountain.
Though it seems, at first, like an art of speaking, poetry is an art of listening. The poet trains to hear clearly and, as much as possible, without interruption, the voice of his or her mind, the voice that gathers, packs with meaning, and unpacks the language he or she knows. It can take a long time to learn to let this voice speak without getting in its way. This slow learning, the growth of this habit of inner attentiveness, is poetic development, and it is the substance of the poet’s art. Of course, this growth is rarely steady, never linear, and is sometimes not actually growth but diminishment—that’s all part of the compelling story of a poet’s way forward.
—from the Introduction
“The staggering thing about a life’s work is it takes a lifetime to complete,” Craig Morgan Teicher writes in these luminous essays. We Begin in Gladness considers how poets start out, how they learn to hear themselves, and how some offer us that rare, glittering lasting work. Teicher traces the poetic development of the works of Sylvia Plath, John Ashbery, Louise Glück, and Francine J. Harris, among others, to illuminate the paths they forged—by dramatic breakthroughs or by slow increments, and always by perseverance. We Begin in Gladness is indispensable for readers curious about the artistic life and for writers wondering how they might light out—or even scale the peak of the mountain.
176 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2018
21 people are currently reading
326 people want to read
About the author
Craig Morgan Teicher
31 books55 followersCraig Morgan Teicher is a poet, critic, and freelance writer. His first book of poems, Brenda Is In The Room And Other Poems, was chosen by Paul Hoover as winner of the 2007 Colorado Prize for Poetry and is due out this November from the Center for Literary Publishing. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many publications, including The Paris Review, The Yale Review, A Public Space, Jubilat, Seneca Review, Forklift Ohio, Octopus, La Petit Zine, Verse, and Colorado Review. His reviews of poetry and fiction, and profiles of poets, appear widely in places like Poets & Writers, Poets.org, Time Out New York, Boston Review and Bookforum. He is a contributing editor of Pleiades and works at Publishers Weekly. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and son and plays drums in the band The Fourelles.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
November 15, 2018
Read the poets/poems/poetry rather then read about them.
December 5, 2018
Teicher makes an attempt at organizing the essays under a cohesive theme of a poet's development -- it doesn't always hold. I enjoyed it more when I remembered it was a series of essays.
I read this mostly to work by analogy -- poetry and preaching are more similar than they are different. I'm not sure I walked away with any insights into how to develop, but have some signposts for the journey.
I read this mostly to work by analogy -- poetry and preaching are more similar than they are different. I'm not sure I walked away with any insights into how to develop, but have some signposts for the journey.
December 28, 2018
I admit that I bought this and was excited to read it because it had a chapter on my friend and former student francine j. harris. And her influences. Even though I know it only touched the surface of francine's influences, that was probably my favorite essay, and not just because francine was the subject. I think it was possible to be more interesting, more original, writing about a fairly new poet with only two books out than it was to say something new about many of the other poets he writes about.
If you've been trying to pay attention for half a century, Teicher's quick observations on people like Wright, Ashbery, Hayden, Gluck, Merwin, Plath, Lowell, clifton, Yeats, all seem fairly obvious. I didn't find anything very startling in most of that discussion.
But it does end up being useful, I think, to put all of this in a critical context, to find the similarities in the ways very different poets come to write their great poems. If I were still teaching (and I'm glad I'm not!), this would be the kind of book I would give to entering MFA students who felt comfortable admitting that they didn't know a lot about the last century of mostly American poetry. It's a book that would help young writers write poems, I think, and that is always good.
If you've been trying to pay attention for half a century, Teicher's quick observations on people like Wright, Ashbery, Hayden, Gluck, Merwin, Plath, Lowell, clifton, Yeats, all seem fairly obvious. I didn't find anything very startling in most of that discussion.
But it does end up being useful, I think, to put all of this in a critical context, to find the similarities in the ways very different poets come to write their great poems. If I were still teaching (and I'm glad I'm not!), this would be the kind of book I would give to entering MFA students who felt comfortable admitting that they didn't know a lot about the last century of mostly American poetry. It's a book that would help young writers write poems, I think, and that is always good.
June 21, 2019
I confess, I read this book of essays in the hopes of learning how I, as a poet, could progress, which was perhaps foolish. By Teicher's thesis, Future Me will (if I grow as a poet, and that's not to be taken for granted) be writing about the same core themes as I am now, only with a firmer grasp of what I believe and how I say it best. His analysis of poets' careers documents their trajectory, but it doesn't really explain how they make the improvements they do. It's like the joke about explanatory proofs--"And then some kind of magic happens" inserted where the explanation should be.
These are nevertheless thoughtful essays, in the sense that Teicher has considered long and hard what poets are doing, and he provokes the reader to do the same. I don't agree with all his analysis; I think he sometimes gives poets more credit than they deserve, seeing depth where I see lazy vagueness. But he makes his arguments well and compactly, and so I found even disagreeing to be enjoyable discourse. Worthwhile read.
These are nevertheless thoughtful essays, in the sense that Teicher has considered long and hard what poets are doing, and he provokes the reader to do the same. I don't agree with all his analysis; I think he sometimes gives poets more credit than they deserve, seeing depth where I see lazy vagueness. But he makes his arguments well and compactly, and so I found even disagreeing to be enjoyable discourse. Worthwhile read.
December 17, 2018
I enjoyed reading this series of essays that are tied together by the general theme of how the work of poets changes over time. This isn't a systematic study of the issue, but a series of reflective essays in which Teicher, a poet himself, muses on the development of some of his favorite poets and how their poetry changed. If there is a general thesis, it might be that it takes significant effort (and/or some life shock) for a poet to change the trajectory of his or her poetry.
He works through various poets to illustrate his points. The poets he chooses are clearly ones to which he feels a close connection. I appreciate the range of poets he considers: Clifton, Yeats, Ashbery, Powell, harris, Merwin, Schwartz, Gluck, and Plath, plus several I am forgetting. Their work is read with a loving yet critical eye, and it is this tender yet perceptive reading of these poets that I found most compelling about this book.
Well done!
He works through various poets to illustrate his points. The poets he chooses are clearly ones to which he feels a close connection. I appreciate the range of poets he considers: Clifton, Yeats, Ashbery, Powell, harris, Merwin, Schwartz, Gluck, and Plath, plus several I am forgetting. Their work is read with a loving yet critical eye, and it is this tender yet perceptive reading of these poets that I found most compelling about this book.
Well done!
February 18, 2019
I picked this book up, judged it by its cover, and brought it home with me from the library. I loved the title, I loved the idea...but what I found was not what I hoped for.
It's a fairly academic take on the creative trajectories of a handful of poets, some of whom I know better than others. He takes as his topic the development of the poetic voice...a topic highly relevant to my current practice as a nascent poet, still figuring out what and who I am. But the book itself felt more like a brick wall covered in ivy than an invitation into the gifts and wonder of poetry. I found myself cringing, battling imposter syndrome, and generally feeling irritable at the gatekeeping of the book. Filled with phrases like "serious poets", "reading deeply and at length", "significant poet", "major poet"...sure, those phrases are descriptive, but they're also exclusive. I couldn't help but feel the book shutting the door on people like me, when it purports instead to be "for writers wondering how they might light out--or even scale the peak of the mountain". The fundamental premise was hierarchical (a single mountain which a single poet might scale!) even when it was tracing a lineage of influence. Not a great mass of us, all working together, reading together, and sculpting poetry together--but a few important voices, and the rest of us erased to dust. It's just not the philosophy I have about writing.
The world of poetry described here feels suffocating. The poets and poems discussed are presumed known by the reader to the point that the lines chosen illuminate very little. It reminded me of the time I spent in poetry classes in college, a time when I had a vivid writing life, but also felt shunned and ignored because I wasn't climbing the academic ladder. The good news is I don't feel any renewed desire to attend an MFA program.
There are some good elements here. The essay on the Ars Poetica was useful, and interesting. And the end of any given essay tended to be lovely. Many of the poems excerpted in the book were wonderful.
This is definitely the most critical book review so far, and I have no doubt it says more about me than about the book. But in any case, I didn't finish it. I put it down and am moving on to actual poetry.
It's a fairly academic take on the creative trajectories of a handful of poets, some of whom I know better than others. He takes as his topic the development of the poetic voice...a topic highly relevant to my current practice as a nascent poet, still figuring out what and who I am. But the book itself felt more like a brick wall covered in ivy than an invitation into the gifts and wonder of poetry. I found myself cringing, battling imposter syndrome, and generally feeling irritable at the gatekeeping of the book. Filled with phrases like "serious poets", "reading deeply and at length", "significant poet", "major poet"...sure, those phrases are descriptive, but they're also exclusive. I couldn't help but feel the book shutting the door on people like me, when it purports instead to be "for writers wondering how they might light out--or even scale the peak of the mountain". The fundamental premise was hierarchical (a single mountain which a single poet might scale!) even when it was tracing a lineage of influence. Not a great mass of us, all working together, reading together, and sculpting poetry together--but a few important voices, and the rest of us erased to dust. It's just not the philosophy I have about writing.
The world of poetry described here feels suffocating. The poets and poems discussed are presumed known by the reader to the point that the lines chosen illuminate very little. It reminded me of the time I spent in poetry classes in college, a time when I had a vivid writing life, but also felt shunned and ignored because I wasn't climbing the academic ladder. The good news is I don't feel any renewed desire to attend an MFA program.
There are some good elements here. The essay on the Ars Poetica was useful, and interesting. And the end of any given essay tended to be lovely. Many of the poems excerpted in the book were wonderful.
This is definitely the most critical book review so far, and I have no doubt it says more about me than about the book. But in any case, I didn't finish it. I put it down and am moving on to actual poetry.
July 29, 2022
This is closer to 2.5 ⭐️s.
There are essays in this book I enjoyed, such as the intro, “We Begin in Anticipation,” “Ars Poetica: Origin Stories,” and the very last essay, “Endings.” The quality doesn’t hold up throughout, and ironically (because the author criticizes some of the poets he discusses as self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing), the self-important tone permeating the book, esp when what’s on the page doesn’t back it up, is a turn-off. Additionally, the essays have a pretty formulaic flow that reminds of college essay writing and I had to force myself to stick with some parts of it to finish the book.
Besides the above, the book gave me glimpses into some poets I haven’t read deeply, whose works I’m now interested in exploring further.
Overall, if you’re into poetry, this is an interesting book of essays to check out at your leisure.
There are essays in this book I enjoyed, such as the intro, “We Begin in Anticipation,” “Ars Poetica: Origin Stories,” and the very last essay, “Endings.” The quality doesn’t hold up throughout, and ironically (because the author criticizes some of the poets he discusses as self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing), the self-important tone permeating the book, esp when what’s on the page doesn’t back it up, is a turn-off. Additionally, the essays have a pretty formulaic flow that reminds of college essay writing and I had to force myself to stick with some parts of it to finish the book.
Besides the above, the book gave me glimpses into some poets I haven’t read deeply, whose works I’m now interested in exploring further.
Overall, if you’re into poetry, this is an interesting book of essays to check out at your leisure.
January 21, 2019
I feel as though I should be focusing on the smart analyses of the work of so many major poets (Plath, Merwin, etc.) that form the bulk of this book. But I confess that I am even more captivated by the author's writing about poetry itself--what poetry means to those of us who write it (or try to). Take, for instance: "A poem is something that can't otherwise be said addressed to someone who can't otherwise hear it." (I think that I've already found my next "Sunday Sentence.")
November 10, 2020
My favorite type of poetry book to keep on my shelves is the complete works. The doorstopper that contains the juvenilia, the poems read in schools and quoted on bookbags, the later poems that hardly cohere. Teicher here looks at poets' progression, with canny insight into poetic development.
As a collection of essays, We Begin in Gladness has value for readers of the many poets that Teicher surveys. Altogether, a strength of such an essay collection is encouragement for poets, young and old, to keep writing ("read too much Rilke before writing and you'll find yourself writing bad Rilke," 23). His tracing of influences and breakthroughs was particularly illuminating for me.
"Though it seems, at first, like an art of speaking, poetry is an art of listening. The poet trains to hear clearly and, as much as possible, without interruption, the voice of the mind, the voice that gathers, packs with meaning, and unpacks the language the poet knows. It can take a long time to learn to let this voice speak without getting in its way. This slow learning, the growth of this habit of inner attentiveness, is poetic development, and it is the substance of the poet's art." (5)
"Poetry is a conversation, an extended one, occupying, perhaps, the span of an entire life. Poets converse, first and foremost, with their language--English for our purposes--and with the idea of language itself. Poets are word fetishists, among other things, and their grounding belief is that language is humankind's greatest technology, inexhaustible, endlessly adaptable, a mirror of the poet's own time and, hopefully, of the endless unfolding of all time." (4)
Poets given particularly lengthy engagements are Sylvia Plath, francine j. harris, W. S. Merwin, and Louise Glück. I found Teicher's look at Brenda Hillman's Gnosticism particularly interesting.
As a collection of essays, We Begin in Gladness has value for readers of the many poets that Teicher surveys. Altogether, a strength of such an essay collection is encouragement for poets, young and old, to keep writing ("read too much Rilke before writing and you'll find yourself writing bad Rilke," 23). His tracing of influences and breakthroughs was particularly illuminating for me.
"Though it seems, at first, like an art of speaking, poetry is an art of listening. The poet trains to hear clearly and, as much as possible, without interruption, the voice of the mind, the voice that gathers, packs with meaning, and unpacks the language the poet knows. It can take a long time to learn to let this voice speak without getting in its way. This slow learning, the growth of this habit of inner attentiveness, is poetic development, and it is the substance of the poet's art." (5)
"Poetry is a conversation, an extended one, occupying, perhaps, the span of an entire life. Poets converse, first and foremost, with their language--English for our purposes--and with the idea of language itself. Poets are word fetishists, among other things, and their grounding belief is that language is humankind's greatest technology, inexhaustible, endlessly adaptable, a mirror of the poet's own time and, hopefully, of the endless unfolding of all time." (4)
Poets given particularly lengthy engagements are Sylvia Plath, francine j. harris, W. S. Merwin, and Louise Glück. I found Teicher's look at Brenda Hillman's Gnosticism particularly interesting.
May 24, 2021
Inspired by the trajectory of some poets, Teicher analyzes the work of famous and less well-known poets whose voices emerge over time as they examine and re-examine questions and themes, and try out techniques and language. These essays propose a process beyond craft, that illuminate poetry's purpose.
"...poetry, at its best, is a means of knowledge, a way of understanding the self and how the self sees the world beyond it. I say 'means' of knowledge because poetic knowledge isn't attained, it's only pointed toward, hopefully more and more precisely. Poetry is the medium for knowledge that cannot be attained, for what is just out of reach, the just-unsayable, unthinkable, unfeelable, which 'resist the imagination almost successfully,' to adapt an idea from Wallace Stevens."--p.132
"A poet's medium is not her whole language....but the portion of it into which she was born: the family dialect, modified, somewhat enlarged, by media, reading, decades of conversation. A voice is this received vocabulary and these habits of phrasing tuned to the particular purposes of expressing the emotions that give rise to a particular poet's poems, what might be called her inspirations. Poetry does not express life-- which is why few poets actually speak like they write, why they don't only talk about the subjects of their poems; rather it expresses a sensibility: the mixture of a poet's heart, mind and voice. Poetry is more a coral than an open field." p. 1137
"...poetry, at its best, is a means of knowledge, a way of understanding the self and how the self sees the world beyond it. I say 'means' of knowledge because poetic knowledge isn't attained, it's only pointed toward, hopefully more and more precisely. Poetry is the medium for knowledge that cannot be attained, for what is just out of reach, the just-unsayable, unthinkable, unfeelable, which 'resist the imagination almost successfully,' to adapt an idea from Wallace Stevens."--p.132
"A poet's medium is not her whole language....but the portion of it into which she was born: the family dialect, modified, somewhat enlarged, by media, reading, decades of conversation. A voice is this received vocabulary and these habits of phrasing tuned to the particular purposes of expressing the emotions that give rise to a particular poet's poems, what might be called her inspirations. Poetry does not express life-- which is why few poets actually speak like they write, why they don't only talk about the subjects of their poems; rather it expresses a sensibility: the mixture of a poet's heart, mind and voice. Poetry is more a coral than an open field." p. 1137
March 6, 2019
Teicher's series of essays illuminate different ways key poets have progressed, regressed, bloomed, and wilted. Each chapter crafts clear simple lines of thought. The books should be helpful for poets and readers. His choices are compelling and the excerpts he chooses from Plath, Merwin, harris, Glück, enrich the arcs he tries to paint. It's an important and valuable book. I found it both intellectually enlightening and also emotionally moving. Teicher is an accomplished and important poet and critic. If I find any fault here it is in the few moments where ticks of the critic intrude unnecessarily on his more important arguments. For example, his short passage on Delmore Schwartz includes a passing comparison to Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese" and he writes it is "a poem that was a teenage lifeline to me, though now I find it oversimplifies its central problem." That need to say I loved that poem, paired with the concession to the scholarly audience that he understands its flaws, will always trip me up because I fall into the same traps. Why is it hard for us to appreciate what we appreciate? That's a different question. Even in the places where I am not sure I agree with Teicher, I am delighted by the conversation. Well worth the read.
August 15, 2019
"A poem is something that can't otherwise be said addressed to someone who can't otherwise hear it. By this definition, poetry is deeply impractical and deeply necessary. There aren't good words for most things we need to express, and lots of people we need to say them to are dead or otherwise unavailable." Craig Morgan Teicher opens his first section of essays with this simple, yet apt definition of poetry. He goes on to examine the poet's ultimate striving--to say the "unsayable."
January 1, 2023
I’m glad I read this book. It is an interesting look at poetry and a little more than a handful of poets. The author often praises poets and then criticizes (going back and forth). I found the book helpful in thinking about poets, their work, their lives. It helps me think a little more deeply about this remarkable kind of writing, kind of art, kind of storytelling.
March 20, 2020
Informative, illuminating
This book is life changing & necessary for any aspiring poet. It will reshape the way you write & the way you read & even the way you see the world. It should be a requirement in any intro creative writing class!
This book is life changing & necessary for any aspiring poet. It will reshape the way you write & the way you read & even the way you see the world. It should be a requirement in any intro creative writing class!
March 25, 2024
One of the best, if not THE best, craft books I have ever read. I was so enthralled and inspired, I read it in less than a day. There were so many tidbits that I highlighted and underlined and circled.
January 29, 2019
Teicher seems almost overly familiar with the poets he discusses. More depth on the trajectories of the poetic career would be welcome.
February 11, 2019
"A poem is something that can't otherwise be said addressed to someone who can't otherwise hear it."
August 3, 2019
Illuminating and beautifully written, this collection of essays offers insights on the stages of poetic growth, illustrated with examples from selected poets and their work.
Want to read
November 1, 2019This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 28, 2020
Possibly the best
book about how to live with poetry I have ever read. Read this, go write some poems (if you dare), come back and read it again. Repeat.
book about how to live with poetry I have ever read. Read this, go write some poems (if you dare), come back and read it again. Repeat.
February 3, 2021
Great insight on how poets progress in their work.
July 1, 2023
I've been enjoying it, but apparently I was enjoying other books more, because I'm out of library renewals and haven't finished. Oh well, better luck next time?
August 3, 2019
Teicher's essays are readily accessible and use pretty clear methods. While Teicher may not my preferred methods when discussing poetry and poetics, he also includes some lovely bits of insights amongst some of the more pedantic analysis and connections. I could easily selections from this is an upper level literary criticism course to demonstrates types of criticism to my newcomer students, so this is still a good tool.
October 26, 2022
Some may disagree with the author's theories and observations, but they are valid and I learned much from his ideas and his essays. Very interesting.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews