Jack FoleyAEs The Dancer and the Dance: A Book of Distinctions deliberately challenges many conventional ways of thinking about poetry. Though extremely scholarly and aware of the u201ctradition, u201d Foley offers readings rooted in a consciousness which is simultaneously non academic and open to the new. u201cThe self of this book, u201d he writes, u201cis not a unity but a multiplicity. Many people would agree with this idea of selfhood--the self as a u2018multiplicity of voicesAE--but clarification is still required as to how the concept of the self as multiplicity affects literary...

Literary Nonficton. Poetry History & Criticism. California Studies. VISIONS & AFFILIATIONS: A CALIFORNIA TIMELINE 1980-2005 is the second of a two-volume chronoencyclopedia of a scene that stretches over sixty-five years. People, ideas, and stories appear, disappear, and reappear as the second half of the century moves forward. Poetry is a major element in this kaleidoscopic California scene. It is argued about, dismissed, renewed, denounced in fury, asserted as divine, criticized as pornographic. Poetry is as Western as the Sierra foothills, and the questions raised here go to its very...

n a life that stretched from 1913 to 1999 James Broughton witnessed and commented on the twentieth century from the point of view of an outsider. In a time aghast at its own horrors, Broughton championed laughter. He was a poet, not of the ivory tower but of the innovative street, a playful, urban voice with the notion that a poet could change the world. In a rational century, he asserted mystery. All: A James Broughton Reader collects the range of this acclaimed poet and filmmaker.