At a time when poets appear tragically detached from the public for which they write, Kevin Stein persuasively demonstrates in "Private Poets, Worldy Acts" the way a particular group of diverse poets have manifested their communal concerns. As "Choice" wrote, Stein's graceful text is a primer on the relationship of the (American) poetic to the political.
Looking through the lens of the careers of Robert Lowell, James Wright, Frank O'Hara, Adrienne Rich, Philip Levine, Yusef Komunyakaa, Rita Dove, David Wojahn, and Carolyn Forche, Stein illuminates the various ways contemporary poets...

Winner of Poetry's Frederick Bock Prize and the Indiana Review Poetry Prize