Now And Then: The Poet's Choice Columns, 1997-2000

(Paperback)

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Description

During his years as Poet Laureate, Robert Hass revived a popular 19th-century tradition: including poetry in our daily newspapers. "Poet's Choice" went on to appear as a nationally syndicated column across the country from 1997 to 2000. The column, which featured poems relevant to current headlines, serves as a symbol of the continuing importance of poetry in our daily lives. This collection contains well-known poets such as Wallace Stevens, Rita Dove, John Ashbery, and Robert Frost, as well as emerging and translated poets such as Jaime Sabines and Czeslaw Milosz. Also included are Hass's essays that accompanied the poems. Encapsulating a world before 9/11, this collection serves as both remembrance and reminder of a period in our history, and as a celebration of the poets whose works transcend time.

Reviews

"A deeply pleasurable anthology of outstanding poems . . . Hass reminds us of the importance of reading and literature, recounting the truly heroic achievement of nearly universal literacy during the nineteenth century and the hallowed place that literature then had in the pages of daily newspapers, a focus that helped make this nation strong, but which we now seem to be devaluing to an alarming degree. Hass is certainly doing his part to keep literature vital, and even the most poetry-phobic of readers will feel welcome here."

Author Bio

Robert Hass served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997 and as a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007. He lives in California with his wife, poet Brenda Hillman, and teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. Paul Ebenkamp previously edited the Counterpoint title The Etiquette of Freedom, a conversation with Jim Harrison and Gary Snyder and Song of Myself, a collection of poems from Walt Whitman. He lives and works in Berkeley, California.