Forces of Imagination

Book excerpt: Cultural Writing. From one of our most esteemed contemporary poets, a collection of essays about reading and poetics, written over many decades, and touching on many centuries. "We expect poets to give a first-hand account of what poetry is. But some poets, when they write criticism, produce a kind of prose that is itself on the verge of being poetry. Valery, Stevens and Marianne Moore belong to this "visionary company." And so does Barbara Guest, whose writings on poetry, collected here, are among the most inspiring works of their kind. It is a deep pleasure to know that such writing can still exist" --John Ashbery.