A Defense of Poetry

By Gabriel Gudding

Book Overview

Winner of the 2001 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize

Runner-up, Society of Midland Authors 2002 Poetry Prize

Gabriel Gudding's poems not only defend against the pretense and vanity of war, violence, and religion, but also against the vanity of poetry itself. These poems sometimes nestle in the lowest regions of the body, and depict invective, donnybrooks, chase scenes, and the abuse of animals, as well as the indignities and bumblings of the besotted, the lustful, the annoyed, and the stupid.

In short, Gudding seeks to reclaim the lowbrow. Dangerous, edgy, and dark, this is an innovative writer unafraid to attack the unremitting high seriousness of so much poetry, laughing with his readers as he twists the elegiac lyric "I" into a pompous little clown.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822957868
• ISBN13: 9780822957867
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.5" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Matt

This is a great book. The poet uses humor to comment on the human condition. It says so much about life, hate and love. The reviewer who has tagged himself as "a reader" and named his review "Poetry Written by the Intimidated" is not openminded enough to read something of this caliber. He is reviewing poetry but states this claim "I'm not a poet, nor do I have a Ph.D., although I have wasted my time on occasion." Why would this person write a review OF POETRY who feels like poetry is a waste of time? Read it and love it.

this book is the bomb

This is the funniest book of poems I've ever read, but it's much more than that. It's a Rubicon moment. Will poetry continue to be "ruled with the scepter of the dumb, the deaf, and the creepy," as Kenneth Koch once wrote, or is it time again to "Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!" (Walt Whitman). If you want reassuring pablum, read Phil Levine and others so beloved by the timorous part-time teaching assistant from New Jersey. If you want the top of your head taken off, though, you want "A Defense of Poetry." This book made me laugh so hard that my husband demanded I read great hunks of it aloud. Which I did, with pleasure, because Gabriel Gudding has a sensational ear. He has timing to die for. And the stuff he's going after -- rage, aggression, terror, stupidity -- is big game. I find it hard to overstate the sorts of claims that this book has made on my attention. In one reading, it became _the_ book I will look to as a touchstone and as crucial sustenance in an age of bombast and bushwhackery. This is an essential book for any reader ready to dispense with the literary equivalent of Sominex in favor of expanding his or her sense of the possibilities for poetry. I commend Gabriel Gudding (whom I have never met) for writing it, and I greet him at the beginning of a brilliant career.

Gudding will not tire, will not falter, and will not fail

Perhaps the only more powerful person than Gabe Gudding in the international banking communities of Wall St., London, and Zurich is Greenspan. When Gabe Gudding decides to make a deal, the Fortune 500 feels the impact as if an earthquake hit. Politicians know not the mess with Gabe because he can break any one of them. However, Gabe's world changes when Robert Lowell enters his life. Though seven decades younger than him, Gabe covets Robert like he has not desired any person or thing in years. Gabe treats his approach to Robert the way he handled a business deal using any means, including immoral to obtain his wants. He gains his inner secrets that he provides to a poetics professor he arranged for him to see. However, as he obsesses over him, Gabe's world begins to crash around him, leaving him with few options. Defense of Poetry is an entertaining tale centering on the potential destructiveness of obsession. The story line is more of a character study than a thriller as Humpty Dumpy provides a deep look into Gabe and Robert's thought processes and inner gut emotions. Graphic sex scenes may turn off some readers, but add to the overall feel of the reader being an observer. Though the subplot involving the law and killers subtract from the tale by trying to twist it into a thriller, the obsession which is the main story line brilliantly works leading to a fabulous absorbing look at extreme behavior.

An Odd, Very Weird, and Very Brilliant Book

The title poem, "A Defense of Poetry," is one of the funniest, saddest, strangest and most inspired poems I have ever read. (Indeed, I see from the acknowledgements page that the poem is forthcoming in a Scribner anthology entitled _Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present_). The irreverence of many of the poems in the book is justified -- or excused -- by the sheer verbal brilliance and imaginative ingenuity of this poet. This is a highly learned writer. The book is just an imaginative tour de force. It reminds me of Stevens' _Harmonium_. The poems in this book are incredibly varied: they range from the formal and crafted to an almost avant-garde (and even whacked or disturbed) kind of poem. But each poem is marked by a peculiar mixture of intelligence, gravity, comedy, and emotion that I have never seen before. This book is going to change how we think about poetry -- and I look forward to more from this odd, new, and weirdly brilliant poet. -- Robert Dobei