Poetry's Afterlife: Verse in the Digital Age (Digital Culture Books)

"The great pleasure of this book is the writing itself. Not only is it free of academic and lit-crit' jargon, it is lively prose, often deliciously witty or humorous, and utterly contemporary. Poetry's Afterlife has terrific classroom potential, from elementary school teachers seeking to inspire creativity in their students, to graduate students in MFA programs, to working poets who struggle with the aesthetic dilemmas Stein elucidates, and to teachers of poetry on any level." --- Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Arizona State University "Kevin Stein is the most astute poet-critic of his generation, and this is a crucial book, confronting the most vexing issues which poetry faces in a new century." ---David Wojahn, Virginia Commonwealth University At a time when most commentators fixate on American poetry's supposed "death," Kevin Stein's Poetry's Afterlife instead proposes the vitality of its aesthetic hereafter. The essays of Poetry's Afterlife blend memoir, scholarship, and personal essay to survey the current poetry scene, trace how we arrived here, and suggest where poetry is headed in our increasingly digital culture. The result is a book both fetchingly insightful and accessible. Poetry's spirited afterlife has come despite, or perhaps because of, two decades of commentary diagnosing American poetry as moribund if not already deceased. With his 2003 appointment as Illinois Poet Laureate and his forays into public libraries and schools, Stein has discovered that poetry has not given up its literary ghost. For a fated art supposedly pushing up aesthetic daisies, poetry these days is up and about in the streets, schools, and universities, and online in new and compelling digital forms. It flourishes among the people in a lively if curious underground existence largely overlooked by national media. It's this second life, or better, Poetry's Afterlife , that his book examines and celebrates. Kevin Stein is Caterpillar Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Bradley University and has served as Illinois Poet Laureate since 2003, having assumed the position formerly held by Gwendolyn Brooks and Carl Sandburg. He is the author of numerous books of poetry and criticism. digitalculturebooks is an imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library dedicated to publishing innovative and accessible work exploring new media and their impact on society, culture, and scholarly communication. Visit the website at (http://www.digitalculture.org) www.digitalculture.org . [1.] On Poets & Aesthetic History. Paper Or Plastic, Pepsi Or Coke, Irony Or Sincerity? -- The Only Courage Is Joy!: Ecstasy And Doubt In James Wright's Poetry -- Playing Favorites: American Poetry's Top Ten-ism Fetish -- When The Frost Is On The Punkin: Newspaper Poetry's History And Decline -- Aesthetic Dodo -- [2.] On Technology & The Writerly Life. Poems And Pixels: The Work Of Art In An Age Of Digital Reproduction -- A Digital Poetry Playlist: Varieties Of Video And New Media Poetries -- These Drafts And Castoffs: Mapping Literary Manuscripts -- Death By Zeroes And Ones: The Fate Of Literary Papers -- [3.] On Teaching & The Writer's Workshop. The Hammer -- Voice: What You Say And How Readers Hear It -- Why Kids Hate Poetry -- Whitman's Sampler: An Assortment Of Youth Poems -- [4.] After Silence. (hidden Track): Poetry In Public Places. Kevin Stein. Digital Culture Books--ser. T.p. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. 9780472026708-1......Page 1 9780472026708-2......Page 16 9780472026708-3......Page 100 9780472026708-4......Page 178 9780472026708-5......Page 228 9780472026708-6......Page 242 9780472026708-7......Page 248 9780472026708-8......Page 266 9780472026708-9......Page 268