The Lives of the Poems and Three Talks

Bagley Wright Lecture Series

by Joshua Beckman

During 2014, Wave Books editor Joshua Beckman traveled around the country giving lectures on poetry. Collected here as two books in conversation—and inaugurating Wave’s Bagley Wright Lecture Series publications—these talks provide a rare and unique insight into a deeply literary life. In The Lives of the Poems, Beckman offers three variations of the same talk that—through repetition and adjustment, a sort of echolocating—illuminate the intimate experience of making a particular set of poems. In 3 Talks, he explores the fluid social dynamics of poetry as it lives between readers, poems, and books.

Genres: Poetry

240 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2018

About the author

Joshua Beckman was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He is the author of six books, including Take It (Wave Books, 2009), Shake and two collaborations with Matthew Rohrer: Nice Hat. Thanks. and Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He is an editor at Wave Books and has translated numerous works of poetry and prose, including Poker by Tomaz Salamun, which was a finalist for the PEN America Poetry in Translation Award. He is also the recipient of numerous other awards, including a NYFA fellowship and a Pushcart Prize. He lives in Seattle and New York.

For more information on this author, go to:
http://www.wavepoetry.com/authors/31-...

Reviews

[Jeffrey Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

The pleasure of reading this is met with the equal sadness that I may never read all of those private poems that we were teased with. This was a joy to read, and a joy to read aloud. The repetition made it feel almost like a meditation on the lives of poems.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loose poetic talks explaining a very particular style of poetry, one that inhabits daily life, full of spontaneity. Mood and moment in abstract bundles of words.

[Zoe Montague · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love that poets can have similar experiences and philosophies and write such different poems, even ones that don’t fully succeed for other writers.