Making Your Own Days

From the winner of the Bollingen Prize in poetry and author of the classic bestseller "Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?" comes a unique, highly entertaining book for anyone who wants to be a better reader and writer of poetry.

More than 150 inspired—and inspiring—novelists, poets, playwrights, painters, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians on how they subtly maneuver the many (self-inflicted) obstacles and (self-imposed) daily rituals to get done the work they love to do. Franz Kafka, frustrated with his living quarters and day job, wrote in a letter to Felice Bauer in 1912, “time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.” Kafka is one of 161 minds who describe their daily rituals to get their work done, whether by waking early or staying up late; whether by self-medicating with doughnuts or bathing, drinking vast quantities of coffee, or taking long daily walks. Thomas Wolfe wrote standing up in the kitchen, the top of the refrigerator as his desk, dreamily fondling his “male configurations”.... Jean-Paul Sartre chewed on Corydrane tablets (a mix of amphetamine and aspirin), ingesting ten times the recommended dose each day ... Descartes liked to linger in bed, his mind wandering in sleep through woods, gardens, and enchanted palaces where he experienced “every pleasure imaginable.” Here are: Anthony Trollope, who demanded of himself that each morning he write three thousand words (250 words every fifteen minutes for three hours) before going off to his job at the postal service, which he kept for thirty-three years during the writing of more than two dozen books ... Karl Marx ... Woody Allen ... Agatha Christie ... George Balanchine, who did most of his work while ironing ... Leo Tolstoy ... Charles Dickens ... Pablo Picasso ... George Gershwin, who, said his brother Ira, worked for twelve hours a day from late morning to midnight, composing at the piano in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers.... Here also are the daily rituals of Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol, John Updike, Twyla Tharp, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Anne Rice, and Igor Stravinsky (he was never able to compose unless he was sure no one could hear him and, when blocked, stood on his head to “clear the brain”).

The classic, inspiring account of a poet's experience teaching school children to write poetry When Kenneth Koch entered the Manhattan classrooms of P.S. 61, the children, excited by the opportunity to work with an instructor able to inspire their talent and energy, would clap and shout with pleasure. In this vivid account, Koch describes his inventive methods for teaching these children how to create poems and gives numerous examples of their work. Wishes, Lies, and Dreams is a valuable text for all those who care about freeing the creative imagination and educating the young.

Rhetoric has traditionally studied acts of persuasion in the affairs of government and men, but this work investigates the language of other, non-traditional rhetors, including immigrants, women, urban children and others who have long been on the margins of civic life and political forums.

The ethnically diverse scope, broad chronological coverage, and mix of biographical, critical, historical, political, and cultural entries make this the most useful and exciting poetry reference of its kind for students today. American poetry springs up out of all walks of life; its poems are "maternal as well as paternal...stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine," as Walt Whitman wrote, adding "Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion." Written for high school and undergraduate students, this two-volume encyclopedia covers U.S. poetry from the Colonial era to the present, offering full treatments of hundreds of key poets of the American canon. What sets this reference apart is that it also discusses events, movements, schools, and poetic approaches, placing poets in their social, historical, political, cultural, and critical contexts and showing how their works mirror the eras in which they were written. Readers will learn about surrealism, ekphrastic poetry, pastoral elegy, the Black Mountain poets, and "language" poetry. There are long and rich entries on modernism and postmodernism as well as entries related to the formal and technical dimensions of American poetry. Particular attention is paid to women poets and poets from various ethnic groups. Poets such as Amiri Baraka, Nathaniel Mackey, Natasha Trethewey, and Tracy Smith are featured. The encyclopedia also contains entries on a wide selection of Latino and Native American poets and substantial coverage of the avant-garde and experimental movements and provides sidebars that illuminate key points.

This carefully crafted ebook collection is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: Meditations in an Emergency: To the Harbormaster The eager note on my door... To the Film industry in Crisis Poem: "At night Chinamen jump" Blocks Les Etiquette jaunes Aus einem April River Poem: "There I could never be a boy" On Rachmaninoff's Birthday The Hunter For Grace, After a Party On Looking at "La Grande Jatte," the Czar Wept Anew Romanze, or The Music Students The Three-Penny Opera A Terrestrial Cuckoo Jane Awake A Mexican Guitar Chez Jane Two Variations Ode Invincibility Poem in January Meditations in an Emergency For James Dean Sleeping On The Wing Radio On Seeing Larry Rivers' "Washington Crossing the Delaware" at the Museum of Modern Art For Janice and Kenneth to Voyage Mayakovsky Lunch Poems: Music Alma On Rachmaninoff's Birthday I watched an armory On the Way to the San Remo 2 Poems from the Ohara Monogatari A Step Away from Them Cambridge Instant coffee with slightly sour cream Three Airs Image of the Buddha Preaching Is It Dirty The Day Lady Died Wouldn't it be funny Khrushchev is coming on the right day! Naphtha Personal Poem Adieu to Norman, Bon Jour to Joan and Jean-Paul Rhapsody Hotel Particulier Cornkind How To Get There A Little Travel Diary Five Poems Ave Maria Pistachio Tree at Chateau Noir At Kamin's Dance Bookshop Steps Mary Desti's Ass St. Paul and All That Memoir of Sergei O . . . . Yesterday Down at the Canal Poem en Forme de Saw For the Chinese New Year & For Bill Berkson Lana Turner Has Collapsed! Galanta Fantasy Other Poems: Yesterday Down at the Canal Noir Cacadou A Doppelgänger Green things are flowers too Entombment Today A Slow Poem V.R. Lang Animals Spleen Did You See Me Walking By The Buick Repairs? In Gratitude to Masters Hate Is Only One Of Many Responses Suppose that grey tree Steps Ann Arbor Variations Having A Coke With You At Joan's 1951 Melancholy Breakfast Digression On Number 1, 1948 A City Winter Poised and cheerful A Pathetic Note As Planned...

First published to enormous acclaim in 1973, this book became a classic that revolutionized the way children are taught to read and write poetry. The celebrated poet Kenneth Koch conveys the imaginative splendor of great poetry--by Blake, Donne, Stevens, Lorca, and others--and then shows how it maybe taught so as to help children write poetry of their own. For this edition, the author has written a new introduction and a special afterword for teachers.

This book is specifically for high school students, though it is useful to college students and anyone interested in the art and craft of poetry. Koch and Farrell, experienced teachers as well as poets, write about poetry in such a way that students will find it accessible and interesting. The book includes selections of poetry by twenty-three poets, among them Dickinson, Hopkins, Pound, Williams and Eliot, as well as Ginsberg, O'Hara, Baraka and Ashbery. There is also the translated work of such modern European poets such as Lorca, Rilke, Rimbaud, Apollinaire and Mayakowsky.