 | |
| Author | Diane Seuss |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Graywolf Press |
Publication date | March 5, 2024 |
| Pages | 112 |
| Awards | Heartland Booksellers Association Award for Poetry |
| ISBN | 978-1644452752 |
Modern Poetry is a 2024 poetry collection by Diane Seuss, published by Graywolf Press. [1] Seuss' sixth poetry collection, it won the 2024 Heartland Booksellers Association Award for Poetry and was designated a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry. [2] [3]
The book's title was derived from a textbook of the same name that Seuss studied in school. Accordingly, the book's poems contend with the nature of poetry—Seuss called the book "a parody of a textbook"—specifically Romantic poetry and John Keats, one of the poets which Seuss deeply studied. [4]
In The New Yorker , Seuss stated that she began to reckon with and even question the point of poetry during the loss of several loved ones and the alienation of the COVID-19 pandemic. After writing Frank: sonnets in 2021, Seuss "needed to turn a corner, as one must, into the next book or sequence or whatever" which ultimately led her to the "dire" interrogation of poetry writ large. [5]
In a starred review, Publishers Weekly concluded that "These irreverent, pulsing, and defiant poems are full of dangerous good sense." [6]
Many critics lauded Seuss' reflection and interrogation of her own art form. Hanif Abdurraqib, writing for The New Yorker , said "The collection—sometimes playfully, sometimes with earnest curiosity, sometimes dismissively—tries to answer the question of poetry’s utility, and does so by sweeping through multiple forms, summoning the dead". [5] The Chicago Review of Books stated that "The collection is a glorious origin story, describing the coup de foudre that Seuss encountered with her chosen profession, her calling really, grounded in experiences that didn’t follow the traditional—or patriarchical— trajectory of academe and ivy". [7] The Poetry Foundation wrote that the "post-Romantic lyric autobiography ... in reinventing the 19th- and 20th-century poetic canons, deconstructs how poems and poets are made, and what poems mean." [8] Preposition Magazine likened Seuss' introspection to that of Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert. [9] The New York Journal of Books compared it to Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. [10]
Other critics observed the book's imagery and technical construction. LitHub pointed out its "powerful images" and "provocative images" as well as Seuss' "rigor blended with a rare wildness." [11] Interview observed the musicality of some poems and the pastoralism of others. [4]
Eamon JR Grennan is an Irish poet born in Dublin, Ireland. He attended University College Dublin where he completed a BA 1963 and an MA 1964. He has lived in the United States, except for brief periods, since 1964. He was the Dexter M. Ferry Jr. Professor of English at Vassar College until his retirement in 2004.
Children's poetry is poetry written for, appropriate for, or enjoyed by children.
Carl Phillips is an American writer and poet. He is a professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2023, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020.
Tracy K. Smith is an American poet and educator. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019. She has published five collections of poetry, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her 2011 volume Life on Mars. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was published in 2015.
Matthea Harvey is a contemporary American poet, writer and professor. She has published four collections of poetry. The most recent of these, If the Tabloids Are True What Are You?, a collection of poetry and images, was published in 2014. Prior to this, the collection Modern Life (2007) earned her the 2009 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award, and a New York Times Notable Book.
Elizabeth Alexander is an American poet, writer, and literary scholar who has served as the president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation since 2018.
Stephanie Burt is a literary critic and poet who is the Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker Professor of English at Harvard University. The New York Times has called her "one of the most influential poetry critics of [her] generation". Burt grew up around Washington, D.C. She has published various collections of poetry and a large amount of literary criticism and research. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker,The New York Times Book Review, The London Review of Books, and other publications.
Maria Saskia Hamilton was an American poet, editor, and professor and university administrator at Barnard College. She published five collections of poetry, the final of which, All Souls, was posthumously published in September 2023. Her academic focus was largely on the American poet Robert Lowell; she edited several collections of the writings and personal correspondence of Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, and Elizabeth Bishop. Additionally, she served as the director of literary programs at the Lannan Foundation, as the Vice Provost for Academic Programs and Curriculum at Barnard College, and as an editor at The Paris Review and Literary Imagination.
Hanif Abdurraqib is an American poet, essayist, and cultural critic. His first essay collection, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was published in 2017. His 2021 essay collection A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance received the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. Abdurraqib received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2021.
Solmaz Sharif is an Iranian-American poet. Her debut poetry collection, Look, was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English at UC Berkeley.
Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian American poet, novelist, and editor. He is the author of the poetry collections Calling a Wolf a Wolf and Pilgrim Bell and of the novel Martyr!, a New York Times bestseller, National Book Award finalist, and one of Barack Obama's favorite books of the year.
Yrsa Daley-Ward is an English writer, model and actor. She is known for her debut book, Bone, as well as for her spoken-word poetry, and for being an "Instagram poet". Her memoir, The Terrible, was published in 2018, and in 2019 it won the PEN/Ackerley Prize. She co-wrote Black Is King, Beyoncé's musical film and visual album, which also serves as a visual companion to the 2019 album The Lion King: The Gift.
Donika Kelly is an American poet and academic, who is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Iowa, where she teaches creative writing. She is the author of the chapbook Aviarium, published with fivehundred places in 2017, and the full-length collections Bestiary and The Renunciations.
Diane Seuss is an American poet and educator. Her book frank: sonnets won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry in 2022.
Oculus is a 2019 poetry collection by Sally Wen Mao, published by Graywolf Press. Mao's second poetry collection, it was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry.
Afterland: Poems is a 2017 debut poetry collection by Hmong American poet Mai Der Vang. It was published by Graywolf Press after Vang won the Walt Whitman Award in 2016, which included publication as a prize. Vang's manuscript had been chosen by Carolyn Forché. The book later went on to be a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry.
[...] is a poetry collection by Palestinian American poet Fady Joudah, published by Milkweed Editions. It was selected by Natalie Diaz, Gregory Pardlo, and Diane Seuss for the 2024 Jackson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry.
From From is a 2024 poetry collection by Monica Youn, published by Graywolf Press. The book's poems tackle issues of racism faced by Asian Americans and other communities in the United States. Youn's fourth collection, it was nominated for the 2023 National Book Award for Poetry and won the 2024 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.
The Rupture Tense is a 2022 poetry collection by Jenny Xie, published by Graywolf Press. Motivated by Xie's visit to China in 2019, the book's poem discusses her Chinese American identity alongside the broader history of the Cultural Revolution. It was nominated for several prizes and won a PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award.
As She Appears is a 2022 debut poetry collection by Shelley Wong, published by YesYes Books. It won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry and was longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award for Poetry.