Electronic book text | |
July 21, 2011 | |
9780819569622 | |
English | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$19.99 USD, £15.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
The House That Jack Built
The Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer
The House That Jack Built collects for the first time the four historic talks given by controversial poet Jack Spicer just before his early death in 1965. These lively and provocative lectures function as a gloss to Spicer's own poetry, a general discourse on poetics, and a cautionary handbook for young poets. This long-awaited document of Spicer's unorthodox poetic vision, what Robin Blaser has called "the practice of outside," is an authoritative edition of an underground classic.
Peter Gizzi's afterword elucidates some of the fundamental issues of Spicer's poetry and lectures, including the concept of poetic dictation, which Spicer renovates with vocabularies of popular culture: radio, Martians, and baseball; his use of the California landscape as a backdrop for his poems; and his visual imagination in relation to the aesthetics of west-coast funk assemblage. This book delivers a firsthand account of the contrary and turbulent poetics that define Spicer's ongoing contribution to an international avant-garde.
Peter Gizzi's afterword elucidates some of the fundamental issues of Spicer's poetry and lectures, including the concept of poetic dictation, which Spicer renovates with vocabularies of popular culture: radio, Martians, and baseball; his use of the California landscape as a backdrop for his poems; and his visual imagination in relation to the aesthetics of west-coast funk assemblage. This book delivers a firsthand account of the contrary and turbulent poetics that define Spicer's ongoing contribution to an international avant-garde.
About the Authors
PETER GIZZI is the author of the poetry collections Artificial Heart (1997) and Periplum (1992), and he is the recipient of a Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets. He is Assistant Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz
Reviews
"Spicer is an intriguing and ultimately crucial figure in the history of postwar American poetry. A monastic and (in some ways) abstract poet, he was also extremely funny, harshly serious, absurd when his drive for transcendence required it. Yet in many places his poetry anticipates cultural studies. His lectures on poetry are some of the best from the postwar era. Peter Gizzi's handling does them full justice: he makes the liveliness of the interchange clear and presents Spicer's knottedness helpfully without explaining the difficulties away."—Bob Perelman
Endorsements
"Spicer is an intriguing and ultimately crucial figure in the history of postwar American poetry. A monastic and (in some ways) abstract poet, he was also extremely funny, harshly serious, absurd when his drive for transcendence required it. Yet in many places his poetry anticipates cultural studies. His lectures on poetry are some of the best from the postwar era. Peter Gizzi's handling does them full justice: he makes the liveliness of the interchange clear and presents Spicer's knottedness helpfully without explaining the difficulties away." —Bob Perelman
"Here at last we have the poet Jack Spicer's legendary Vancouver and Berkeley lectures given during the turbulent 1960s, now lovingly and meticulously edited (one might say illuminated) by the poet Peter Gizzi. One may quarrel with many of Spicer's often provocative opinions but there is an urgency here, a life-force. These lectures, along with Gizzi's afterword, provide a vital articulation of the poet's profound and necessary calling."—Susan Howe
"These 'lectures' are unbounded maps of Spicer's experience in his exploratory poetic practice that surprised even himself, as it does us, inside and outside the collapse of language into its materiality, neither transparent nor ideal in political, sacred, or poetic terms. Peter Gizzi's presentation is a tour de force. His 'afterword' offers the most important consideration to date of the genius of Spicer's work and of its dignity in our hearts and minds." —Robin Blaser
"Here at last we have the poet Jack Spicer's legendary Vancouver and Berkeley lectures given during the turbulent 1960s, now lovingly and meticulously edited (one might say illuminated) by the poet Peter Gizzi. One may quarrel with many of Spicer's often provocative opinions but there is an urgency here, a life-force. These lectures, along with Gizzi's afterword, provide a vital articulation of the poet's profound and necessary calling."—Susan Howe
"These 'lectures' are unbounded maps of Spicer's experience in his exploratory poetic practice that surprised even himself, as it does us, inside and outside the collapse of language into its materiality, neither transparent nor ideal in political, sacred, or poetic terms. Peter Gizzi's presentation is a tour de force. His 'afterword' offers the most important consideration to date of the genius of Spicer's work and of its dignity in our hearts and minds." —Robin Blaser
Wesleyan University Press | |
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|
Electronic book text | |
July 21, 2011 | |
9780819569622 | |
English | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$19.99 USD, £15.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Other Titles by Peter Gizzi
Now It's Dark
Peter Gizzi
Dec 2020
- Wesleyan University Press
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Archeophonics
Peter Gizzi
Oct 2017
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The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest
Barbara Guest, edited by Hadley Guest, OtherPeter Gizzi
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Other Titles by Jack Spicer
Be Brave to Things
Jack Spicer, edited by Daniel Katz
Oct 2021
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My Vocabulary Did This to Me
Jack Spicer
Feb 2012
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The House That Jack Built
edited by Peter Gizzi, Jack Spicer, OtherPeter Gizzi
Jul 1998
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$24.95 USD
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Now It's Dark
Peter Gizzi
Dec 2020
- Wesleyan University Press
$35.00 USD
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$15.95 USD
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$12.99 USD
- Electronic book text
Archeophonics
Peter Gizzi
Oct 2017
- Wesleyan University Press
$24.95 USD
- Hardback
$12.99 USD
- Electronic book text
$15.95 USD
- Paperback / softback
The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest
Barbara Guest, edited by Hadley Guest, OtherPeter Gizzi
May 2016
- Wesleyan University Press
$27.95 USD
- Paperback / softback
$22.99 USD
- Electronic book text
Other Titles in LITERARY CRITICISM / Poetry
John Milton
John T. Shawcross
Mar 2021
- University Press of Kentucky
$45.00 USD
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Robert Penn Warren
edited by Neil Nakadate
Mar 2021
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Sustainable Poetry
Leonard M. Scigaj
Mar 2021
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