1st Edition

A Little Tour Through European Poetry

By John Taylor Copyright 2015
    298 Pages
    by Routledge

    298 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book is both a sequel to author John Taylor's earlier volume Into the Heart of European Poetry and something different. It is a sequel because this volume expands upon the base of the previous book to include many more European poets. It is different in that it is framed by stories in which the author juxtaposes his personal experiences involving European poetry or European poets as he travels through different countries where the poets have lived or worked. Taylor explores poetry from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Lithuania, Albania, Romania, Turkey, and Portugal, all of which were missing in the previous gathering, analyzes heady verse written in Galician, and presents an important poet born in the Chuvash Republic. His tour through European poetry also adds discoveries from countries whose languages he reads fluently-Italy, Germany (and German-speaking Switzerland), Greece, and France. Taylor's model is Valery Larbaud, to whom his criticism, with its liveliness and analytical clarity, is often compared. Readers will enjoy a renewed dialogue with European poetry, especially in an age when translations are rarely reviewed, present in literary journals, or studied in schools. This book, along with Into the Heart of European Poetry, motivates a dialogue by bringing foreign poetry out of the specialized confines of foreign language departments.

    Preface 1. On the Strassenbahn with Klaus Merz's Poetry 2. Friedrich Ho;lderlin, Our Contemporary 3. German Poetry beyond Rilke, Benn, and Brecht 4. The Unexpected Compassion of Gottfried Benn 5. Reading Contemporary Poetry in Weimar 6. Translating Swiss Poetry in Looren 7. The Italian Poets Are Coming! 8. Meeting up with Lorenzo Calogero in Florence 9. Guardami, dimmi, e cosi per te: Alfredo de Palchi 10. Sandro Penna's Secret Poems 11. The Dark of Love: Patrizia Cavalli 12. Poetic Ljubljana 13. Edvard Kocbek, Emmanuel Mounier, the French Review Esprit , and Personalism 14. Questions of Daily Life and Beyond: Milan Djordjevi 15. The Tiger Is the World : Tomislav Marijan Bilosni 16. The Unshackling of Albanian Poetry 17. Standing by Pointlessness: Kiki Dimoula 18. Manolis Xexakis's Captain Super Priovolos : Notes for an Exegesis 19. A Panorama of Turkish Love Poetry: Birhan Keskin and Other Contemporary Women Poets 20. The Seventh Gesture : Tsvetanka Elenvoka 21. The Wonder-like Lightning of Prose Poetry 22. Love According to Luca 23. Discovering Benjamin Fondane 24. The Desire to Affirm: George Szirtes 25. Prague as a Poem: Vitzslav Nezval and Emil Hakl 26. A Rather Late Letter from Wrocaw 27. The Self and Its Selves: A Journey through Poetic Northern Climes 28. The Russian Poets Are Coming! 29. The Five Angles of the Golden Rectangle: Tomas Venclova 30. Telling Dichotomies: Maria do Cebreiro and Kristiina Ehin 31. The Metaphysics of the Kiss: Vicente Aleixandre 32. A Spanish Metaphysical Poet Searching for Songs of Truth: Jose angel Valente 33. The Passion and the Patience of Eugenio de Andrade 34. The Past Hour, the Present Hour: Yves Bonnefoy Notes Bibliography Index

    Biography

    John Taylor