The Lives of the Poems and Three Talks

(Paperback)

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During 2014, Wave Books editor Joshua Beckman traveled around the country giving lectures on poetry. Collected here as two books in conversationand inaugurating Waves Bagley Wright Lecture Series publicationsthese talks provide a rare and unique insight into a deeply literary life. In The Lives of the Poems, Beckman offers three variations of the same talk thatthrough repetition and adjustment, a sort of echolocatingilluminate the intimate experience of making a particular set of poems. In Three Talks, he explores the fluid social dynamics of poetry as it lives between readers, poems, and books.

Reviews

"Beckman traces the development of his ideas, many accompanied by images of long-hand edits, and gives his audience not only insight into making a poem, but the hope that they, too, can make a poem."
Valerie Wieland,NewPages

Author Bio

Joshua Beckman was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He is the author of many books, includingThe Lives of the Poems and Three Talks,The Inside of an Apple,Take It,Shake,Your Time Has Come,and two collaborations withMatthew Rohrer:Nice Hat. Thanks.andAdventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He is editor-in-chief at Wave Books and has translated numerous works of poetry and prose, includingMicrograms, by Jorge Carrera Andrade,5 Meters of Poems(Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010) by Carlos Oquendo de Amat andPoker(Ugly Duckling Presse, 2008) by Toma alamun, which was a finalist for the PEN America Poetry in Translation Award. He also co-editedSupplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners. Beckman is the recipient of numerous awards, including a NYFA fellowship and a Pushcart Prize. He lives in Seattle and New York.