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These personal and critical essays explore the lives and works of twenty-four key poets of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Examining his subjects in their social, historical and biographical contexts, Stephen Kessler reveals with unusual clarity and insight the essence of their accomplishment. For those familiar with these writers, Kessler's informed perspective will refresh and expand their understanding; for the uninitiated, he provides an illuminating introduction to a range of the most vital voices in the literature of our times.
The book includes portraits and appreciations of Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Duncan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, William Everson, Bob Kaufman, Gary Snyder, Jack Hirschman, Charles Bukowski, James Laughlin, Denise Levertov, Robert Bly, W. S. Merwin, Frank O’Hara, Amiri Baraka, Wendell Berry, Billy Collins, Vicente Aleixandre, Fernando Alegría, Ernesto Cardenal, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Yehuda Amichai, Guy Davenport, and Czeslaw Milosz, as well as provocative essays on the art of translation, “antiwarism,” poetry and radio, and “seducing the muse.”
Stephen Kessler’s
personal, critical and journalistic essays, reviews, columns,
features and interviews have appeared since the mid-1970s in
such Greater Bay Area periodicals as the Santa Cruz Express, San
Francisco Review of Books, The Sun (Santa Cruz), Monterey
County Weekly, Metro Silicon Valley, Metro
Santa Cruz, East Bay Express, North Bay Bohemian,
and Poetry Flash, of which he is a contributing editor,
as well as in The Redwood Coast Review, which he edits.
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Charles Bukowski
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Bob Dylan
Photo: Sony BMG
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Saul Bellow |
SAMPLE ESSAYS BY STEPHEN KESSLER
Excerpts from personal letters to Stephen Kessler on his essays:
“Thanks very much for the clipping. I thought it
was great.” —Henry Miller
“You are an Ace.” —Charles Bukowski
“I know that writers are supposed to ignore what is
written about them. I am practicing, and can ignore praise
and blame fairly well. But I can’t ignore intelligent
understanding that doesn’t oversimplify. Jack [Shoemaker]
sent me your article…and I would be ashamed not to tell
you how deeply grateful I am for it.” —Wendell Berry
“It’s a wonderful feeling for an author—and
a rare one—to know that he has been completely understood
by a reviewer. Thanks for a most lucid and intelligent reading” [of
When Nietzsche Wept]. —Irvin Yalom
“I just got around to reading the essay [‘How
Marijuana Ruined My Life’], which was thoroughly delightful….Louis
Armstrong smoked several joints a day throughout his adult
life, which suggests that weed is not necessarily incompatible
with success, hard work, or creativity.” —Hendrik Hertzberg
“Thanks for sending your fine article on Bellow. I thought
your critical assessments were just right, and you gave a very
good account of the success of Herzog. Nice work!” —James
Atlas
“What a wonderful piece of writing [‘The Integrated
Man: Harry Belafonte’s Cultural Politics’]! You
do justice to the man. Obviously we have both experienced the
innumerable ways in which Belafonte is an excellent subject
for contemplating race, music, and American life and culture.” —Henry
Louis Gates, Jr.
“I’m directing this to you via Poetry
Flash so
that the editors will also be complimented for publishing what
is probably the most acute and wonderful critique of James
Laughlin’s life and work that he will ever receive. Bravo!” —Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
“I am honored by your writing, its range and care, its
considered perception and the concern that has gone into the
background of it. It clearly comes from years of reading and
thinking about the poems and I am honored by your attention….it
is a summary that bespeaks the kind of reader we all hope exists,
and I am grateful to you.” —W. S. Merwin
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PERIODICALS
The Redwood Coast Review, Poetry
Flash, North Bay Bohemian, East Bay Express, Metro Silicon
Valley, Metro Santa Cruz, Monterey County Weekly, San Francisco
Review of Books, Bloomsbury Review, Review of Contemporary
Fiction, Exquisite Corpse, kayak, The Sun (Santa Cruz),
Santa Cruz Express, and others. |
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