That sounds very interesting. There is a great book by Volker Weidermann that discusses what actually happened in the Munich Republic-in “Dreamers: When the Writers Took Power, Germany 1918”. Then there is the entertaining book by Lucy Hughes Hallett – “The Pike” about the Fascist political poet D’Annunzio.
Poetry is a house with many rooms and so, rightly, is criticism. David O’Hanlon-Alexandra’s ‘New Defences of Poetry’ project, now available on its own website here, marked the bicentennial of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s essay ‘A Defence of Poetry’ by inviting defences of poetry today and received an appropriately diverse and challenging range of responses. I was very glad to have a piece included.
David’s introduction says everything I would want to say and more about why criticism, poetics, whatever you want to call it, is so important today. It is also generous survey of the ‘defences’ themselves, which are a treasure trove. There is a great deal to think with in there and I was humbled, frankly, to be in the same store as so many poets/critics I always look forward to reading. In the spirit of David’s call for the project to be a spark for further discussion…
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