Discovery & Reminiscence

A former United States Poet Laureate, winner of a Pulitzer Prize, and recipient of numerous grants and awards, Mona Van Duyn has been hailed as one of our greatest living American poets. To help broaden and uniquely inform our understanding of Van Duyns work, editor Michael Burns has gathered ten essays, a poem, a succinct biographical sketch, and Van Duyns own laureate address to the Library of Congress. In the first section of this collection, poets Maxine Kumin and Carolyn Kizer provide tributes that elucidate the special effect Van Duyns poetry has had on their work and thought. Pulitzer Prizewinner Richard Howard contributes a poem that both extols the qualities of Van Duyns poems and lyrically places those qualities within her contemporary scene. The second section contains eight essays exploring aspects as varied as Van Duyns penchant for particularity, her remarkable ability to rediscover for us the strangeness of everyday living, and her elegant style, fluid in both free verse and form. Included are contributions from Stephen Yenser, Rachel Hadas, Emily Grosholz, Sidney Burris, Ann Townsend, Michael Bugeja, Wyatt Prunty, and Jane Hoogestraat. The final section opens with Van Duyns witty and incisive overview of the state of poetry in America at the close of the twentieth century. Also included is a short narrative history of Van Duyns literary career. Filled with keen prose by distinguished poets and critics, this collection is not only a resounding tribute to one poets body of work, but also a timely pulse-taking of the literary scene surrounding Van Duyns poetry.