What Poets Used to Know: Poetics - Mythopoesis - Metaphysics

by Charles Upton

From the days of the first shamans, through Homer, Dante, the traditional ballads, Rumi, Blake, Emily Dickinson, and Lew Welch, poetry has been rooted in metaphysics. In What Poets Used to Know, Charles Upton presents poetry both as a set of contemplative techniques and as a key to the accumulated lore hoard of the human race.

Genres: Poetry, Essays, Philosophy, Literature, Religion

198 pages, Hardcover

Published October 22, 2016

Reviews

[MM · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most profound collections of essays I have ever read. The author asserts that poetry is a symbolic means of expressing eternal truths, and analyses a few poems. He speaks about the dangers and pitfalls, psychological and moral, for the poet. His essay for his dead-by-suicide mentor Lew Welch was one of the most heart-wrenching things I have read. An important book that re-asserts and reclaim role of the poet as seeking (and sometimes attaining) the Siege Perilous.

[Paul Bard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um, wow. This is what poetry is all about. This book right here. Wow.

[Kitap Yakıcı · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant, challenging essays on poetry (and Terence McKenna!) from a perspective rooted in the perennial philosophy.

[ET · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth alone for the first chapter of the muse to the poet.
Or rather, the poet beholden to the Muse.