The Ground of Our Beseeching: Metaphor and the Poetics of Meditation

by Peter Sharpe

The Ground of Our Metaphor and the Poetics of Meditation describes the signature styles of meditation in three American poets, and shows how each generated language out of spiritual yearning. The author's inquiry in this area grew out of an interest in the interplay of creativity, language, and religion, and a need to know, as both critic and practicing poet, how metaphor arises, particularly in the context of poetry which hearkens after the sacred. How far, in other words, has metaphor taken some of our central poets - T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and Theodore Roethke - in matters of belief? No other critique of American poetry, prior to this study, has systematically linked the idea of the sacred with the practice of metaphor. Nor has a compelling case been made, until now, for viewing meditation, a style of thinking close to prayer, as the source or "ground" of these poets.

391 pages, Hardcover

First published February 9, 2005