Books by Don Share
The Open Door: One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years of "Poetry" Magazine
When Harriet Monroe founded Poetry magazine in Chicago in 1912, she began with an image: the Open Door. “May the great poet we are looking for never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample genius!” For a century, the most important and enduring poets have walked through that door—William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens in its first years, Rae Armantrout and Kay Ryan in 2011. And at the same time, Poetry continues to discover the new voices who will be read a century from now.
Poetry’s archives are incomparable, and to celebrate the magazine’s centennial, editors Don Share and Christian Wiman combed them to create a new kind of anthology, energized by the self-imposed limitation to one hundred poems. Rather than attempting to be exhaustive or definitive—or even to offer the most familiar works—they have assembled a collection of poems that, in their juxtaposition, echo across a century of poetry. Adrienne Rich appears alongside Charles Bukowski; poems by Isaac Rosenberg and Randall Jarrell on the two world wars flank a devastating Vietnam War poem by the lesser-known George Starbuck; August Kleinzahler’s “The Hereafter” precedes “Prufrock,” casting Eliot’s masterpiece in a new light. Short extracts from Poetry’s letters and criticism punctuate the verse selections, hinting at themes and threads and serving as guides, interlocutors, or dissenting voices.
The resulting volume is an anthology like no other, a celebration of idiosyncrasy and invention, a vital monument to an institution that refuses to be static, and, most of all, a book that lovers of poetry will devour, debate, and keep close at hand.
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The Open Door: One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years of "Poetry" Magazine
When Harriet Monroe founded Poetry magazine in Chicago in 1912, she began with an image: the Open Door. “May the great poet we are looking for never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample genius!” For a century, the most important and enduring poets have walked through that door—William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens in its first years, Rae Armantrout and Kay Ryan in 2011. And at the same time, Poetry continues to discover the new voices who will be read a century from now.
Poetry’s archives are incomparable, and to celebrate the magazine’s centennial, editors Don Share and Christian Wiman combed them to create a new kind of anthology, energized by the self-imposed limitation to one hundred poems. Rather than attempting to be exhaustive or definitive—or even to offer the most familiar works—they have assembled a collection of poems that, in their juxtaposition, echo across a century of poetry. Adrienne Rich appears alongside Charles Bukowski; poems by Isaac Rosenberg and Randall Jarrell on the two world wars flank a devastating Vietnam War poem by the lesser-known George Starbuck; August Kleinzahler’s “The Hereafter” precedes “Prufrock,” casting Eliot’s masterpiece in a new light. Short extracts from Poetry’s letters and criticism punctuate the verse selections, hinting at themes and threads and serving as guides, interlocutors, or dissenting voices.
The resulting volume is an anthology like no other, a celebration of idiosyncrasy and invention, a vital monument to an institution that refuses to be static, and, most of all, a book that lovers of poetry will devour, debate, and keep close at hand.
Copies
No copies available.
Who Reads Poetry: 50 Views from “Poetry” Magazine
by Don Share, Fred Sasaki
Who reads poetry? We know that poets do, but what about the rest of us? When and why do we turn to verse? Seeking the answer, Poetry magazine since 2005 has published a column called “The View From Here,” which has invited readers “from outside the world of poetry” to describe what has drawn them to poetry. Over the years, the incredibly diverse set of contributors have included philosophers, journalists, musicians, and artists, as well as doctors and soldiers, an iron-worker, an anthropologist, and an economist. This collection brings together fifty compelling pieces, which are in turns surprising, provocative, touching, and funny.
In one essay, musician Neko Case calls poetry “a delicate, pretty lady with a candy exoskeleton on the outside of her crepe-paper dress.” In another, anthropologist Helen Fisher turns to poetry while researching the effects of love on the brain, “As other anthropologists have studied fossils, arrowheads, or pot shards to understand human thought, I studied poetry. . . . I wasn’t disappointed: everywhere poets have described the emotional fallout produced by the brain’s eruptions.” Even film critic Roger Ebert memorized the poetry of e. e. cummings, and the rapper Rhymefest attests here to the self-actualizing power of poems: “Words can create worlds, and I’ve discovered that poetry can not only be read but also lived out. My life is a poem.” Music critic Alex Ross tells us that he keeps a paperback of The Palm at the End of the Mind by Wallace Stevens on his desk next to other, more utilitarian books like a German dictionary, a King James Bible, and a Macintosh troubleshooting manual.
Who Reads Poetry offers a truly unique and broad selection of perspectives and reflections, proving that poetry can be read by everyone. No matter what you’re seeking, you can find it within the lines of a poem.
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Union
by Don Share
Poetry. "'We fought America in ourselves,' Don Share writes, and UNION suggests—in exquisitely lyrical gestures—the breadth and depth of our public and private, civil and uncivil wars. These quietly powerful poems range from the gritty intrigues of New York City to subsistence farms, where 'the dogs are in charge'. Along the way, they witness the vestiges of place embodied in the 'lazy-built, leaky drawl' of regional accents and the eloquence of artifacts that comprised an epoch—the Triptiks, Reader's Digest Condensed, Castro Convertibles, and Olds 88 of post World War II American culture. But UNION also sings the eternal concerns of love and time, death and longing. And 'sing' is the right verb for Share's passionate, richly realized work. Few poets manage such dexterous and fresh music. Few books are as lovely or profound."—Alice Fulton
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Bunting's Persia
Poetry. Middle Eastern Studies. Persian Translation. Edited by Don Share, this slim anthology collects Basil Bunting's translations from Persian poetry by Rudaki, Ferdowsi, Manuchehri, Sa‘dī, Hafiz, and Obaid-e Zakani, including some that are previously unpublished. Bunting, who is widely regarded as one of the most important British poets of the twentieth century, proved unusual in his deep and abiding interest in Middle Eastern culture. Here, he renders poetry of remarkable tonal and emotional range in characteristically clear and resolute language. As Dick Davis, translator of The Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, comments: "Reading Bunting's translations, I am struck again by how fresh and strong they are, how vivid in their feeling, and how he digs into the spirit of the originals—a kind of passionate excavation work."
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Wishbone
by Don Share
These poems take place in America's backyards and byways, intensive care rooms and airports, haunted by fathers and Fathers, informed by philosophy, the Judeo-Christian tradition, and pop culture. One finds the poet there too, less his portrait than a self-deprecating likeness in the crowd (the Renaissance master in the corner of the canvas) decrying and defending, his "umbrella out and Cubs cap on . . . curiously Odyssean in the Loop," and always at the ready.
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Squandermania (Salt Modern Poets Series)
by Don Share
Don Share's latest collection, "Squandermania", is a book of poems that are slightly death-haunted and studded with references to marriage and fatherhood, geology and biology.
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