What Is Poetry: Conversations With the American Avant-Garde

Over a four-year period, Daniel Kane interviewed many of America’s most interesting and daring contemporary poets about their work. What Is Poetry features twelve of the liveliest of these dialogues, accompanied by an in-depth introduction to the American "avant-garde tradition," a series of personable biographies, and an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

The results are nothing short of a revelation: the interviews offer poets, readers, and writing teachers a backstage pass to experimental poetry, and Kane’s introductory essay provides a unique approach to an art that is at once playful and provocative.

Rae Armantrout ? John Ashbery ? Robert Creeley ? Fanny Howe ? Lisa Jarnot ? Kenneth Koch ? Ann Lauterbach ? Bernadette Mayer ? Harryette Mullen ? Michael Palmer ? Lewis Warsh ? Marjorie Welish