The Strangest of Theatres: Poets Writing Across Borders

by Jared Hawkley (Editor), Susan Rich (Editor), Brian Turner (Editor)

The Strangest of Theatres explores how poets who are willing to venture beyond our borders can serve as envoys to the wider world and revitalize American poetry in the process. What are they looking for when they leave? What do they find? How does their experience shape them, and what is revealed when they sit down at their desks and take up the pen?

Original and reprinted essays by contemporary poets who have spent time abroad address questions of estrangement, identity, and home. These reflections represent a diverse atlas of experience from authors such as Kazim Ali, Elizabeth Bishop, Naomi Shihab Nye, Nick Flynn, Yusef Komunyakaa, Claudia Rankine, Alissa Valles, and many others.

Following these literary reflections is a roundtable conversation among fourteen poets as well as a section that provides practical re-sources for finding work abroad, applying for fellowships and residencies, funding a trip, obtaining proper travel documents, and attending to other cultural considerations. This inspiring, useful book addresses concerns relevant to any American writer preparing to go abroad, already traveling, just returning, or simply dreaming of the faraway.

Genres: Poetry, Essays, Anthologies, Travel

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2013

About the author

Jared Hawkley is a filmmaker, writer, and editor from Vancouver. He co-edited The Strangest of Theatres, a collection of travel essays and guides for poets abroad. He's also been a contributing editor for The Best American Nonrequired Reading; White Collar, Blue Collar, No Collar; and books of student writing for the educational nonprofit 826michigan, including Don't Stay Up So Late, a treasury of bedtime stories. He has written for newspapers and blogs, designed record jackets, led hikes up fourteeners in Rocky Mountain National Park, and given dogsled tours in the northern woods of Minnesota. He lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

So helpful, on so many levels. I have recommended this book to so many people -- poets, students, writers, travelers, dreamers. It is helpful to all.

[Molly]

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