Up for a challenge? Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * Up for a challenge? Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? Up for a challenge? Poet, translator, culture historian, book reviewer and lover of language, Bruce Whiteman has sifted and scrutinized 50 years of his critical writings and selected those that still have delight to offer the curious reader. The title comes from a quote of composer Igor Stravinsky — “Poetics is the study of work to be done” — and the opening piece, , sets the critical tone that threads through the entire book. On the first page we read, “April is National Poetry Month, thirty days out of the year when poetry gets a nod from libraries, publishers and other cogs in the literary machine that usually give it short shrift,” adding “The average Canadian or American doesn’t give a pinch of prairie dog scat for poetry.
” Work to Be Done How, then, to keep the average reader from immediately closing the book when the topic is poetry? Whiteman’s ability to share his enthusiasm, knowledge and love of poetry should soothe hurt feelings or assuage fears the article will be one long harangue or nostalgia fest for “when I was in school we had to memorize ...
etc.” He does promote, defend and encourage readers: “What makes a poet is that he has the ache; the ear is where the events of the world focus and become a poem,” adding a Jack Spicer quote, “Pr.
