Close Calls with Nonsense

Close Calls with Nonsense
Author: Stephanie Burt
Publisher:
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2009-03-31
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

Essays and critical writings on contemporary poetry by Stephen Burt, "the finest critic of his generation" (Lucie Brock-Broido) Stephen Burt's Close Calls with Nonsense provokes readers into the elliptical worlds of Rae Armantrout, Paul Muldoon, C. D. Wright, and other contemporary poets whose complexities make them challenging, original, and, finally, readable. Burt's intelligence and enthusiasm introduce both tentative and longtime poetry readers to the rewards of reading new poetry. As Burt writes in the title essay: "The poets I know don't want to be famous people half so much as they want their best poems read; I want to help you find and read them. I write here for people who want to read more new poetry but somehow never get around to it; for people who enjoy Seamus Heaney or Elizabeth Bishop and want to know what next; for people who enjoy John Ashbery or Anne Carson but aren't sure why; and, especially, for people who read the half-column poems in glossy magazines and ask, ‘Is that all there is?'"

The Poem Is You

The Poem Is You
Author: Stephanie Burt
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 430
Release: 2016-09-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0674737873

The variety of contemporary American poetry leaves many readers overwhelmed. The critic, scholar, and poet Stephen Burt sets out to help. Beginning in the early 1980s, where critical consensus ends, he presents 60 poems, each with an original essay explaining how the poem works, why it matters, and how it speaks to other parts of art and culture.

Nonsense on Stilts

Nonsense on Stilts
Author: Massimo Pigliucci
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2010-05-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0226667871

Recent polls suggest that fewer than 40 percent of Americans believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution, despite it being one of science’s best-established findings. More and more parents are refusing to vaccinate their children for fear it causes autism, though this link can been consistently disproved. And about 40 percent of Americans believe that the threat of global warming is exaggerated, despite near consensus in the scientific community that manmade climate change is real. Why do people believe bunk? And what causes them to embrace such pseudoscientific beliefs and practices? Noted skeptic Massimo Pigliucci sets out to separate the fact from the fantasy in this entertaining exploration of the nature of science, the borderlands of fringe science, and—borrowing a famous phrase from philosopher Jeremy Bentham—the nonsense on stilts. Presenting case studies on a number of controversial topics, Pigliucci cuts through the ambiguity surrounding science to look more closely at how science is conducted, how it is disseminated, how it is interpreted, and what it means to our society. The result is in many ways a “taxonomy of bunk” that explores the intersection of science and culture at large. No one—not the public intellectuals in the culture wars between defenders and detractors of science nor the believers of pseudoscience themselves—is spared Pigliucci’s incisive analysis. In the end, Nonsense on Stilts is a timely reminder of the need to maintain a line between expertise and assumption. Broad in scope and implication, it is also ultimately a captivating guide for the intelligent citizen who wishes to make up her own mind while navigating the perilous debates that will affect the future of our planet.

I'm Just No Good at Rhyming

I'm Just No Good at Rhyming
Author: Chris Harris
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2017-09-26
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0316266590

The instant New York Times bestseller featured on NPR's Weekend Edition with Scott Simon! B. J. Novak (bestselling author of The Book With No Pictures) described this groundbreaking poetry collection as "Smart and sweet, wild and wicked, brilliantly funny--it's everything a book for kids should be." Lauded by critics as a worthy heir to such greats as Silverstein, Seuss, Nash and Lear, Harris's hilarious debut molds wit and wordplay, nonsense and oxymoron, and visual and verbal sleight-of-hand in masterful ways that make you look at the world in a whole new wonderfully upside-down way. With enthusiastic endorsements from bestselling luminaries such as Lemony Snicket, Judith Viorst, Andrea Beaty, and many others, this entirely unique collection offers a surprise around every corner. Adding to the fun: Lane Smith, bestselling creator of beloved hits like It's a Book and The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, has spectacularly illustrated this extraordinary collection with nearly one hundred pieces of appropriately absurd art. It's a mischievous match made in heaven! "Ridiculous, nonsensical, peculiar, outrageous, possibly deranged--and utterly, totally, absolutely delicious. Read it! Immediately!" --Judith Viorst, bestselling author of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Fashionable Nonsense

Fashionable Nonsense
Author: Alan Sokal
Publisher: Picador
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2014-01-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1466862408

In 1996 physicist Alan Sokal published an essay in Social Text--an influential academic journal of cultural studies--touting the deep similarities between quantum gravitational theory and postmodern philosophy. Soon thereafter, the essay was revealed as a brilliant parody, a catalog of nonsense written in the cutting-edge but impenetrable lingo of postmodern theorists. The event sparked a furious debate in academic circles and made the headlines of newspapers in the U.S. and abroad. In Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science, Sokal and his fellow physicist Jean Bricmont expand from where the hoax left off. In a delightfully witty and clear voice, the two thoughtfully and thoroughly dismantle the pseudo-scientific writings of some of the most fashionable French and American intellectuals. More generally, they challenge the widespread notion that scientific theories are mere "narrations" or social constructions.

We Need to Talk

We Need to Talk
Author: Michael Theune
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2017-10-24
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1783098872

We evaluate poems constantly: as workshop leaders, competition judges and journal editors. But how do we judge the success of verse in these contexts? The authors propose an innovative method by which anyone involved in the assessment of poetry can be more transparent about how they value verse. This book foregrounds the ethical and professional obligations of poets, teachers and critics to conduct axiological inquiry so they can discover and publish what they value. We Need to Talk suggests why and how people who care about poetry should communally explore and document their shared (and conflicting) values. This is the first book to provide the background and theory, as well as a practical, working model, for the communal, empirical evaluation of creative writing.

Making Sense of Nonsense

Making Sense of Nonsense
Author: Raymond Moody
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2020-01-08
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0738763373

What do the whimsical writings of Dr. Seuss have in common with near-death experiences? The answer is that nonsense writing and spiritual experiences seem to defy all logic and yet they both can make a powerful personal impact. In this book, New York Times bestselling author Dr. Raymond Moody shares the groundbreaking results of five decades of research into the philosophy of nonsense, revealing dynamic new perspectives on language, logic, and the mystical side of life. Explore the meaningful feelings that accompany nonsense language and learn how engaging with nonsense can help you on your own spiritual path. Discover how nonsense transcends classical logic, opening the doorway to new spiritual and philosophical breakthroughs. With dozens of examples from literature, comedy, music, and the history of religion, this book presents a unique new approach to the mysteries of the human spirit.

Lyric Shame

Lyric Shame
Author: Gillian White
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2014-10-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0674967445

Bringing a provocative perspective to the poetry wars that have divided practitioners and critics for decades, Gillian White argues that the sharp disagreements surrounding contemporary poetics have been shaped by “lyric shame”—an unspoken but pervasive embarrassment over what poetry is, should be, and fails to be. Favored particularly by modern American poets, lyric poetry has long been considered an expression of the writer’s innermost thoughts and feelings. But by the 1970s the “lyric I” had become persona non grata in literary circles. Poets and critics accused one another of “identifying” with lyric, which increasingly bore the stigma of egotism and political backwardness. In close readings of Elizabeth Bishop, Anne Sexton, Bernadette Mayer, James Tate, and others, White examines the social and critical dynamics by which certain poems become identified as “lyric,” arguing that the term refers less to a specific literary genre than to an abstract way of projecting subjectivity onto poems. Arguments about whether lyric poetry is deserving of praise or censure circle around what White calls “the missing lyric object”: an idealized poem that is nowhere and yet everywhere, and which is the product of reading practices that both the advocates and detractors of lyric impose on poems. Drawing on current trends in both affect and lyric theory, Lyric Shame unsettles the assumptions that inform much contemporary poetry criticism and explains why the emotional, confessional expressivity attributed to American lyric has become so controversial.

Contested Records

Contested Records
Author: Michael Leong
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2020-05-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1609386906

Why have so many contemporary poets turned to source material, from newspapers to governmental records, as inspiration for their poetry? How can citational poems offer a means of social engagement? Contested Records analyzes how some of the most well-known twenty-first century North American poets work with fraught documents. Whether it’s the legal paperwork detailing the murder of 132 African captives, state transcriptions of the last words of death row inmates, or testimony from miners and rescue workers about a fatal mine disaster, author Michael Leong reveals that much of the power of contemporary poetry rests in its potential to select, adapt, evaluate, and extend public documentation. Examining the use of documents in the works of Kenneth Goldsmith, Vanessa Place, Amiri Baraka, Claudia Rankine, M. NourbeSe Philip, and others, Leong reveals how official records can evoke a wide range of emotions—from hatred to veneration, from indifference to empathy, from desire to disgust. He looks at techniques such as collage, plagiarism, re-reporting, and textual outsourcing, and evaluates some of the most loved—and reviled—contemporary North American poems. Ultimately, Leong finds that if bureaucracy and documentation have the power to police and traumatize through the exercise of state power, then so, too, can document-based poetry function as an unofficial, counterhegemonic, and popular practice that authenticates marginalized experiences at the fringes of our cultural memory.

The Nonsense Show

The Nonsense Show
Author: Eric Carle
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 39
Release: 2017-02-07
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0399176888

Silliness takes center stage in this laugh-out-loud book from the creator of The Very Hungry Caterpillar?--now available as a board book! Yes, there’s something strange, something funny and even downright preposterous on every page of this book. But it’s not a mistake – it’s nonsense! Nonsense lies at the heart of many beloved nursery rhymes. Children readily accept odd statements like “the cow jumped over the moon” and “the dish ran away with the spoon.” This fanciful bending of reality is also basic to surrealism. In this book, nonsense and surrealism combine to spark creativity and imagination. What’s true? What’s impossible? What’s absolutely absurd? From Eric Carle, creator of the classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, comes a book to make children laugh and think, preparing them for a lifetime of loving both words and art. Praise for The Nonsense Show A TIME Magazine Top 10 Children's Book of 2015! * "Carle creates fun and laughter in this homage to the surrealist artist René Magritte. [P]erfect for storytimes and silly times all round. Carle hits it out of the nonsense park!"–Booklist, starred review * "A sure hit as a read-aloud and a definite purchase for picture book collections."–School Library Journal, starred review * "A picture book made to incite pleasure and joy."–Kirkus Reviews, starred review * "[The Nonsense Show], with its cleanly designed white pages, makes the unexpected elements of the imagery stand out and prompts questions and wonder."–Horn Book, starred review