| That Self-Forgetful Perfectly Useless Concentration Contributor(s): Shapiro, Alan (Author) |
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ISBN: 022641695X ISBN-13: 9780226416953 Publisher: University of Chicago Press OUR PRICE: $28.71 Product Type: Paperback Published: November 2016 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Literary Figures - Literary Criticism | American - General - Literary Criticism | Poetry |
| Dewey: B |
| LCCN: 2016019568 |
| Physical Information: 0.7" H x 5.5" W x 8.4" (0.50 lbs) 192 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: More than a gathering of essays, That Self-Forgetful Perfectly Useless Concentration is part memoir, part literary criticism, and an artful fusion of the two. It is an intimate portrait of a life in poetry that only Alan Shapiro could have written. In this book, Shapiro brings his characteristic warmth, humor, and many years as both poet and teacher to bear on questions surrounding two preoccupations: the role of conventions--of literary and social norms--in how we fashion our identities on and off the page, and how suffering both requires and resists self-expression. He sketches affectionate portraits of his early teachers, revisits the deaths of his brother and sister, and examines poems that have helped him navigate troubled times. Integrating storytelling and literary analysis so seamlessly that art and life become extensions of each other, Shapiro embodies in his lively prose the very qualities he celebrates in the poems he loves. Brimming with wit and insight, this is a book for poets, students and scholars of poetry, teachers of literature, and everyone who cares about the literary arts and how they illuminate our personal and public lives. |
Contributor Bio(s): Shapiro, Alan: - Alan Shapiro has published many books, including Reel to Reel, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. |