We Begin in Gladness: How Poets Progress

Poet Teicher (The Trembling Answers), PW’s director of special editorial projects, analyzes poetic development in its many varied contours, examining the work of several exceptionally talented poets to arrive at some larger truths about the medium itself. He begins by establishing an elegant definition of poetry as “something that can’t otherwise be said addressed to someone who can’t otherwise hear it,” and goes on to trace the trajectories of several poets’ voices and themes, from the “rapid, surging development” of Sylvia Plath to John Berryman’s decades of dogged plodding before the completion of The Dream Songs. He further explores how poets work in conversation with one another, via close readings of several poems including John Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” and Susan Wheeler’s homage/companion piece, “The Debtor in a Convex Mirror.” In doing so, Teicher establishes a broader picture of how contemporary American poetry has evolved. Each practitioner incorporates “a matrix of experiences of other poetry absorbed, adapted, smeared, blended, spat out” to build and elaborate on traditions, allowing the form itself to reach new heights. Teicher’s reasoning is sound, articulate, and accessible to readers of all poetic fluency levels, but also so original that even experts will find new ways of thinking about old favorites. [em](Nov.) [/em]