Translating & Interpreting, General & Miscellaneous Poetry - Literary Criticism
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Overview
Companion Spider is the accumulated work of a poet and translator who goes more deeply into the art and its process and demands than anyone since Robert Duncan. Clayton Eshleman is one of our most admired and controversial poets, the translator of such great international poets as Cesar Vallejo, Aime Cesaire and Antonin Artaud, and founder and editor of two important literary magazines, Sulfur and Caterpillar. As such, Eshleman writes about the vocation of poet and of the poet as translator as no one else in America today; he believes adamantly that art must concern itself with vision, and that poets learn best by an apprenticeship that is a kind of immersion in the work of other poets.Companion Spider opens with a unique eighty page essay called "Novices: A Study of Poetic Apprenticeship" addressed to the poet who is just starting out. Subsequent sections take up the art of translation, poets and their work, and literary magazine editing. The title is drawn from an extraordinary visionary experience which the author had, which becomes a potent metaphor for the creative process. Through the variety of poets and artists to whom he pays homage, Eshleman suggests a community which is not of a single place or time; rather, there is mutual recognition and responsiveness, so that the reader becomes aware of a range of artistic practices s/he might explore
Ebook Edition Note: The essay, "Gull Wall," has been redacted.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Clayton Eshleman, poet, founder of literary magazines Sulfur and Caterpillar, and translator of Aim C saire, Antonin Artaud and Cesar Vallejo, has authored a collection of essays on the reading and writing of poetry, Companion Spider. In it, Eshleman parses works by Lorca, Artaud and C saire. He argues for a system of apprenticeship for young poets, and he excoriates The Norton Anthology of Poetry for its neglect of Objectivist and Language poets. With a foreword by Adrienne Rich. (Jan.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Library Journal
A poet, translator, and founder of the groundbreaking literary magazines Sulfur and Caterpillar, Eshleman says that writers don't need workshops but gravitate toward them anyway, because they are "so gregarious, such leaky vessels." He certainly is: To open this book is to step into a world of writers, drugs, and poetry, of motorcycling through Kyoto to see Gary Snyder or being sent by Allen Ginsberg to call on Herbert Huncke in the act of cooking a poem, literally. One gets the impression that Eshleman picks his friends largely on their ability to stand up to him in an argument. While his combative style can be daunting, there is nothing clubby or hermetic about his pronouncements; he always points the reader out, not in, as with his long lists of recommended books. The spider of the title shows up in several instances, most tellingly in a French cave painting, where it figures as a companion in a search for "a self strong enough to love, strong enough to not judge, and strong enough to disintegrate." Anyone who delves into these opinionated essays will step back into the sunlight both irritated and enlightened. Recommended for academic libraries. David Kirby, Florida State Univ., Tallahassee Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.From the Publisher
". . . To step into this book is to step into a world or writers, drugs, and poetry, of motorcycling through Kyoto to see Gary Snyder or being sent by Allen Ginsberg to call on Herbert Huncke in the act of cooking a poem, literally. . . Anyone who delves into these opinionated essays will step back into the sunlight both irritated and enlightened. Recommended for academic libraries."--Library JournalBook Details
Published
January 31, 2002
Publisher
Middletown, Conn. : Wesleyan University Press, 2002.
Pages
352
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780819564825