On Frank Bidart: Fastening the Voice to the Page (Under Discussion)

Frank Bidart has always defied expectation and convention without ever sounding conscious of such an effort or veering into self-parody. Bidarts poetry is often all at once deeply generous of spirit, terrifyingly beautiful, and verging on the ecstatic in its glimpse of great turbulence just beneath the surface. Rhythmically Bidart possesses an astute sense of the music of speech, both on the page and in the earproving again Frosts assertion that a dramatic necessity goes deep into the nature of the sentence. In the process Bidart forges a unique and uniquely American voice that combines, writes Seamus Heaney in one of this books essays, a Dantesque severity with an immediacy of voice and a contemporaneity of idiom that [is] as alive to the resources of the tape-deck as it [is] to the tradition of terza rima . This collection of essays from thirty-six poets and writers puts Bidart in perspective for his numerous longtime readers and is sure to draw new adherents to one of our greatest living poets. Contributors include: Sven Birkerts Elizabeth Bishop Michael Chabon Louise Glck Donald Hall Seamus Heaney David Lehman Robert Lowell Robert Pinsky Edmund White and more Overview : Memoirs, Essays, Conversations -- Frank Bidart : A Salute / Seamus Heaney -- Frank Bidart And The Tone Of Contemporary Poetry / Langdon Hammer -- Frank Bidart's Voice / Tom Sleigh -- Frank Bidart And Punctuation / Lloyd Schwartz -- The Tumult In The Heart Keeps Asking Questions ... / Alice Mattison -- Presence : Frank Bidart / Dan Chiasson -- An Interview With Frank Bidart / Andrew Rathmann And Danielle Allen -- Bookslut Interview With Frank Bidart / Adam Travis -- Reviews -- On Golden State / Robert Lowell And Elizabeth Bishop -- Introduction To Golden State / Richard Howard -- From Dealing With Tradition / Jonathan Galassi -- From History Has To Live With What Was Here / Alan Williamson -- From The Discursive Aspect Of Poetry / Robert Pinsky -- From Other Voices, Other Tones / Donald Hall -- On Ellen West / Edmund White -- From Recent Poetry : Ten Poets / Helen Vendler -- On The War Of Vaslav Nijinsky / Fred Chappell -- Burnt Offerings / Sven Birkerts -- From The Prosaic Principle / David Lehman -- On The Sacrifice / Michael Chabon -- From Recombinative Poetry / Robert Mcdowell -- Bidart's The Sacrifice / Liam Rector -- From Imagination Pressing Back / Helen Vendler -- From Research In The Absolute / Anne Winters -- Reliving The Legacies / Alan Shapiro -- From The Forbidden / Louise Gluck -- We Are The Wheel To Which We Are Bound' Frank Bidart's Desire / Karl Kirchwey -- Finding Truth's Beauty / Stephen Burt -- Frank Bidart, Tragedian / Cal Bedient -- The Westerner / Vijay Seshadri -- The Night-world Of Desire / David Gewanter -- The Art Of Inhabiting The Body / Forrest Gander -- The Poiesis Of Human Performance / Andrew Rathmann -- The Very Rich Hours Of Frank Bidart / James Longenbach -- Frank Bidart, Lyric Poet / Garth Greenwell. Edited By Liam Rector And Tree Swenson.