Overview

A poem is an act of faith because the poet believes in it,"" contends John Wall Barger in The Elephant of Silence, a collection of essays exploring forms of knowing (and not knowing) that awaken a poetic mind. By considering poetry, film, and the intersections among aesthetic moments and our lives, Barger illuminates the foundations of poetic craft but also probes how to be alive, creative, and open in the world. Each piece investigates unanswerable questions and indefinable words: Lorca's duende, Nabokov's poshlost, Bashō's underglimmer, Huizinga's ludic, Tarkovsky's Zona. Influenced by poets such as Glück and Ruefle, and filmmakers such as Kubrick and Lynch, Barger writes—first always sharing his own personal life stories—on the nature of perception, experience, and the human mind. With lyric eloquence and disarming candor, The Elephant of Silence tackles how to live an imaginative life, how to gravitate toward the silence from which art comes, and how the mystical is also the everyday.

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9780807181577

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Reviews

"What a pleasure to follow poet John Wall Barger's singular, brilliant, unpretentious, generous mind, as he writes in an utterly natural and precise way about subjects notoriously difficult to discuss: poetry, film, writing, marriage, even silence."" - Matthew Zapruder, author of Story of a Poem ""If you can't go to the movies with Barger, do the next best thing and enjoy these sensitive, playful essays on what he's watched, read, and observed, with a poet's blend of thought and feeling."" - Adrienne Su, author of Peach State ""Barger's essays are all, in some way, about the creative process itself and the audience's role as a vital participant in that process. An author has defined a set of parameters, yet it is up to us, the viewer, to bring our own lived experience to bear it out. Barger navigates this terrain with the ease and imagination of an expert tour guide, a 'Stalker'—in the spirit of Tarkovsky—who understands our own pivotal involvement in helping to create this world we inhabit."" - Bill Morrison, director of Dawson City: Frozen Time"

What a pleasure to follow poet John Wall Barger's singular, brilliant, unpretentious, generous mind, as he writes in an utterly natural and precise way about subjects notoriously difficult to discuss: poetry, film, writing, marriage, even silence."" - Matthew Zapruder, author of Story of a Poem ""If you can't go to the movies with Barger, do the next best thing and enjoy these sensitive, playful essays on what he's watched, read, and observed, with a poet's blend of thought and feeling."" - Adrienne Su, author of Peach State ""Barger's essays are all, in some way, about the creative process itself and the audience's role as a vital participant in that process. An author has defined a set of parameters, yet it is up to us, the viewer, to bring our own lived experience to bear it out. Barger navigates this terrain with the ease and imagination of an expert tour guide, a 'Stalker'—in the spirit of Tarkovsky—who understands our own pivotal involvement in helping to create this world we inhabit."" - Bill Morrison, director of Dawson City: Frozen Time

Author Information

John Wall Barger is the author of six collections of poems, including Smog Mother. An editor for Frontenac House, he lives in Vermont and lectures in the writing program at Dartmouth College.

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