The Art of Poetry

Rating:
Summary: The Poetics of Joy
Review: There are those who speak of the "anxiety" of poetry, but there is a case to be made for poetry that results not from agony or a confessional impulse but out of pleasure, the desire to communicate pleasure to an audience hungry for it. Koch generates as much pleasure as any poet, and it is not only the comic value of his poetry that recommends it but the spirit of creativity itself. In "The Art of Poetry" you get a kind of guide to poetics, an "ars poetica" in the Horatian manner with an American accent. You also get "Fresh Air," his memorable 1950s diatribe against academic poetry, still pertinent today. A necessary antidote to the New York Times.