Based on meticulous research in the archives of some of the most prominent Italian avant-garde writers, Poetry on Stage examines the literary and ideological climate of the sixties and seventies.

First published in 1919 by Ezra Pound, Ernest Fenollosa’s essay on the Chinese written language has become one of the most often quoted statements in the history of American poetics. As edited by Pound, it presents a powerful conception of language that continues to shape our poetic and stylistic preferences: the idea that poems consist primarily of images; the idea that the sentence form with active verb mirrors relations of natural force. But previous editions of the essay represent Pound’s understanding—it is fair to say, his appropriation—of the text. Fenollosa’s manuscripts, in the Beinecke Library of Yale University, allow us to see this essay in a different light, as a document of early, sustained cultural interchange between North America and East Asia. Pound’s editing of the essay obscured two important features, here restored to view: Fenollosa’s encounter with Tendai Buddhism and Buddhist ontology, and his concern with the dimension of sound in Chinese poetry. This book is the definitive critical edition of Fenollosa’s important work. After a substantial Introduction, the text as edited by Pound is presented, together with his notes and plates. At the heart of the edition is the first full publication of the essay as Fenollosa wrote it, accompanied by the many diagrams, characters, and notes Fenollosa (and Pound) scrawled on the verso pages. Pound’s deletions, insertions, and alterations to Fenollosa’s sometimes ornate prose are meticulously captured, enabling readers to follow the quasi-dialogue between Fenollosa and his posthumous editor. Earlier drafts and related talks reveal the developmentof Fenollosa’s ideas about culture, poetry, and translation. Copious multilingual annotation is an important feature of the edition. This masterfully edited book will be an essential resource for scholars and poets and a starting point for a renewed discussion of the multiple sources of American modernist poetry.

This volume examines the development of poetic literacy including the specific processes used by expert poetry readers and professional poets. In doing so it provides a much needed synthesis of research findings across diverse domains such as human development, the scientific study of literature, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, psycholinguistics and education. An important feature of the book is its exploration of the new and relatively unexplored area of research on the development of poetic writing. Both theoretical and practical, the volume will be of interest to researchers as well as educators. The detailed explication of expert knowledge and the trajectory through which relative novices become relative experts should allow educators to make evidence-based decisions. Valuable guidelines for developmentally-appropriate practice in pedagogical settings are provided to better optimize learning and inspire students from preschool to graduate school and beyond.

Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. "I was wandering around the house of poetry and this book showed me to a door I didn't know existed. Now, on the other side, nothing is the same. By layering and arranging found art, original drawings, washi, photos, paint, and bits of leaf, Naoko Fujimoto has created a stunning contemporary emaki engaged with Japanese heritage, the horrors of war, and daughterhood, offering us a dynamic accumulation on the page that feels as delightful and devastating as life itself."--Gabrielle Bates

Including applied readings, this book explores the divide between practical criticism and theory in 20th century criticism to propose a new way of reading poetry.