Customer Reviews (1)

gioia lives up to his reputation
when reading gioia's first collection, you can't help but wonder if he is overrated. he is one of the most celebrated of the new formalists, and one of the leaders of the movement. you hear over and over how good he is. he is the writer of the "can poetry matter" essay. and, since he is outside the world of academia, you can't help but to think of other poets outside the academic world (wallace stevens and william carlos williams come to mind immediately). so you wonder if the guy is overrated. he's not. he writes formal verse beautifully. he has good control over the meter and line. "The Room Upstairs", easily one of the best poems in the collection, and my personal favorite, shows gioia's skill as a poet. i look forward to reading the other collections i have. ... Read more

Product Description
When Dana Gioia, the author of "Can Poetry Matter?," published his equally provocative essay, "Fallen Western Star: The Decline of San Francisco as a Literary Region," he knew that certain quarters would be up in arms. Prominent California literati were quick to defend the San Francisco Scene and wrote articles attacking Gioia. Others attacked the attackers. The entire exhilarating, sometimes hilarious exchange appears in The "Fallen Western Star" Wars. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

more Gioia controversy
It seems that Dana Gioia can't do much of anything without turning the poetry world upsided down. More controversy, and all collected in this slim volume for us to take in. It starts with Gioia's essay "Fallen Western Star" which chronicles San Francisco's fall from it's height as the second largest literary center in the US. Like most of Gioia's essays, it is well-written, well-though out, and pertinant. It applies to more than just San Francisco, but discusses the danger we are in of losing all regional literature. And from there it was a hornet's nest had been poked. There are some well written discussions from Jack Foley (who edited the collection) and Richard Silberg (who opposes Gioia). Silberg makes a good case and writes almost as eloquently as Gioia does. I leave it up to the reader to decide which side is right. There are also well written responses from Dave Mason, Jonah Raskin, Micheal Lind, and Scott Timberg. There is also a letter from Howard Junker, which really doesn't belong here because it is a rant against Gioia, which is not thought out at all and clumsily written. The book is one that is essential to understanding the state of American literature. As usual, Gioia is in the center of some flurry of anger or controversy, but as usual Gioia makes a point that all of us need to understand to help save the state of American Letters. ... Read more

Product Description
Mark Todd is the New West incarnate.In Wire Song, Todd's first collection, each poem brings another element of contemporary life in the rural West into focus.Many poems detail the difficult, sometimes comical, sometimes beautiful, and sometimes heartbreaking work of ranching, telling stories of everything from the death of a foal to the arrival of spring, from what kind of hat to wear on the job to the traditional work of a farrier day.In his longer narrative poems, Todd recounts a present in which dirt bikers and ranchers collide (guess who wins), and a past in which he reimagines one of his own notorious forebears, John Wesley Hardin, at the moment he decides to take the path of crime and violence.Throughout Todd's work, there is a delicate balance between the facts of nature and the domesticating work of man, in which something as ordinary as barbed wire comes to embody an entire way of life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Finally a full-length collection
Finally, a collection of Mark Todd's poetry has been published! I first read his works in the classic collection of Colorado western slope poetry titled "Geography of Hope." Ever since, I have hoped for a full-length collection. It has finally arrived and what a collection it is. Todd lives among the incomparable landscape of the Colorado Rockies near Gunnison, Colorado. He writes in a manner that chronicles and respects the geographical region while at the same time his verse is so powerful that he transcends region and speaks to the heart regardless of where you live. His pose "The Doyleville Schoolhouse" is one of my favorites. His reminiscences of the old schoolhouse and it's importance to the farmers and ranchers is a reminder that "Some traditions run deeper than concrete." In fact, "the where can sometimes tell us who we are." The poem titled "Passages" will give the reader a flavor for his observations of the land he calls home: "These back-road passages still guide the lost wanderers, No matter the distance of the journey called home."The book contains forty-one poems dealing with the weather, friends, animals, family, tragedy, humor, the land and a host of other subjects related to "...the country here-abouts..." that portrays the reality of a landscape that will speak to the reader where ever they reside. Wallace Stegner said "No place is a place until it has had a poet." With this publication of Wire Song the western slope of Colorado, indeed the entire state, has a first rate poet. Conundrum Press continues their high standards with this book. ... Read more

Product Description

Kennedy/Gioia's An Introduction to Fiction, 11th edition continues to inspire students with a rich collection of fiction and engaging insights on reading, analyzing, and writing about stories.

This bestselling anthology includes sixty-five superlative short stories, blending classic works and contemporary selections.  Written by noted poets X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia, the text reflects the authors' wit and contagious enthusiasm for their subject.  Informative, accessible apparatus presents readable discussions of the literary devices, illustrated by apt works, and supported by interludes with the anthologized writers.  This edition features 10 new stories, three masterwork casebooks, revised and expanded chapters on writing, and a new design.

Customer Reviews (3)

Good Mixture
I love this book. We used it for my Intro to Fiction class, and it has a good mix of short stories. It has a lot of extras for some stories that will help you understand the stories better. I commend my teacher for picking this book and I won't sell this book for book-buy-back. It was also the same thing with last semester no one sold the book so we all had to buy new books.

it was ok
the book wasnt in that great of a condition as they claimed it to be.. but it was a decent price.

The new standard
For years Norton has been the standard in the Literature textbook field. But lately it seems that Longman is coming up and taking over. First there are the pocket anthologies edited by R.S. Gwynn, better than anything Norton has. Then there is the Longman Anthology of Short Fiction edited by Dana Gioia and R.S. Gwynn, which should take the place of Norton as the standard that all other textbooks should be compared with. And finally there is the series of anthologies edited by X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.

The Introduction to Fiction is an excellent anthology written by one of the best poets of this generation and one of the best poets of the older generation. Kennedy's years of experience in the literary world, and his years of experience writing for children (making things easy to understand), and Gioia's take on literature from outside the world of academia have given this anthology an ease of understanding that you won't find in anything Norton has put together. They write clearly. They have chosen good stories, and ones that help understand the topic of the chapter. As well as a `writer's perspective' which adds understanding to the story. They also have added two new casebooks on Raymond Carver and Flannery O'Connor.

I'd say that without any doubt Longman will overtake Norton with this anthology. In fact the only Fiction anthology that I find to be any better than this one is the Gioia & Gwynn Short Fiction anthology, also put out by Longman. ... Read more

Product Description

From the author team of the discipline's most widely used literature anthology, this accessible and instructive guide introduces students to the language of literary study.

Featuring an engaging and accessible writing style, this supplemental reference manual for the introductory student has over 400 entries and serves to demystify literature and the terms, techniques, and analysis tools that literary scholars use.

Customer Reviews (2)

What I asked for
I wanted used books and that's what I got. Some books I've received are used but you could never tell. this one however had a big used sticker on the side, but whatever, I don't use it for my class much.

A good choice
This is exactly the right book for someone like me, who wants a lively, expert, up-to-date and, within its relatively brief compass, a reasonably comprehensive guide to terms in language, literary criticism and theory, but one that is not too technical, not clogged with jargon. I like the clarity and conciseness, and the helpful cross-referencing which allows one to put this definition or that in a wider context. As the authors say, there are various longer books to which one can turn for treatment in still greater depth; but for the intelligent, enquiring high school or university student, the merits of this little compendium will not soon be exhausted. ... Read more

Product Description
In Barrier of a Common Language, Dana Gioia collects essays on British poets and poetry spanning the past two decades.
Gioia ignited a national debate on the relevance of poetry in 1991 when he published an essay in the Atlantic titled Can Poetry Matter? The essay was expanded into a book of the same name and went on to become one of the best-selling books of contemporary poetry criticism in the 1990s.
In Barrier of a Common Language Gioia addresses the current disconnect between British and American poetry, the result of America's growing post-war self-sufficiency in its intellectual concerns and concomitant patronizing attitude toward Britain. Writes Gioia, "Today...most American readers are not only unfamiliar with current British poetry, but modestly proud of the fact. They do not dissemble, but urbanely flourish their ignorance as an indisputable sign of discrimination."
Whether British poetry ever regains the importance in Anglo-American literary traditions it had fifty years ago, says Gioia, "will depend on the quality of service it receives from critics, poets, editors, and anthologists who alone can make it accurately heard and understood."
Poet, critic, and acclaimed author of Can Poetry Matter?, Dana Gioia is one of America's leading contemporary men of letters. Winner of the American Book Award, Gioia is internationally recognized for his role in reviving rhyme, meter, and narrative in contemporary poetry.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

good collection
First of all, you have to realize Dana Gioia isn't just an average American talking about British poetry. It isn't like, say me for example. Gioia is extremely well informed and knows what he is talking about. So you get a really good collection of essays. But that is what this is, just a collection of essays that are only connected by the fact that they discuss British poets. Now don't get me wrong, these are great essays and you can't go wrong reading them, I just wish that Gioia had rewritten them to make them more cohesive as a whole, to really give us a picture of British poetry. Several of the essays were just reviews of books, and the Larkin essay was a review of Andrew Motion's biography of Larkin. Gioia would have done better to have discussed Larkin, Burgess, Ted Hughes, Amis, Dick David, Gunn, etc, like his opening essay (The Barrier of a Common Language: New British Poetry in the Eighties) and his essay on Fenton and Causley. These are well written and good essay/reviews. I just think that we would have been better served by something that was more cohesive and not just a collection of previously published essays and reviews. Still, they are good.

A scholarly compilation of varied topics
In Barrier Of A Common Language: An American Looks At Contemporary British Poetry, Dana Gioia (poet, literary critic, and Chairman of the National Endowment for the Art) has assembled insightful and informative essays on British poets and poetry over the past two decades. A scholarly compilation of such varied topics as the growing disconnect between British and American poetry; fading traditions in poetic literature; and in-depth analysis of modern works, fill the pages of this astute and superbly presented anthology of criticism. Barrier Of A Common Language is a welcome and seminal contribution to academic library British Literature & Poetry reference collections and reading lists. ... Read more

Product Description
This comprehensive chronological anthology includes 58 essays on poetry by 53 poets.Starting with James Weldon Johnson and Robert Frost, the book offers diverse and often conflicting accounts of the nature and function of poetry. The collection includes rarely anthologized essays by Jack Spicer, Rhina Espaillat, Anne Stevenson, and Ron Silliman, as well as work by some of the finest younger critics in America, including William Logan, Alice Fulton, and Christian Wiman. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Accurate Historical Overview
I bought this book for my Creative Writing: Poetry class and would recommend it to anyone who wants to know the basics of twentieth century poetics.It covers the most famous writers, such as Robert Frost, by summarizing their lives and providing examples of what forms of poetry they used and what makes up any particular form.Don't buy this book if you want to read poetry, but do if you want to understand it, for that is its goal, and it provides explanations of numerous types of poetry and verse. ... Read more

Product Description
With the end of the 1900s, the time has come for a thorough assessment of one hundred years of poetry - from the widely acclaimed to the subtly influential - and with an eye to the importance and meaning of poetry in America.

Compiled by three poets and poetry scholars - including 2002 American Book Award Winner Dana Gioia - this anthology presents American poetry across the twentieth century from Stephen Crane to Kevin Young. The collected works are arranged according to the major movements in American poetry, offering a valuable teaching resource for American Literature and Poetry courses. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Lacks poems from good poets, too broad sampling from inferior poets
This books is very disappointing. Many, many of the poets are 2nd rate and their poems take up valuable space. One can't escape the fact that this is a politically correct collection, though in all honesty it could have been worse. Many of the poets should have been referenced in an essay or essays in this long book. The authors should have used Oscar Williams' collections of American and British poetry as their model. Goia is a would-be formalist, but a decidedly inferior poet and his taste, given this anthology is bad. No poems from Katharine Byer, Christine Garren, Ellen Voight, or Edgar Bowers(no Bowers, what a joke!) or many other first rate poets with something to say and who say it well. Many will say it's just opinion, but the anthologists must be held accountable for their selections (and hence their opinions).Not worth buying at any price.

Super Fast Delivery!
The product came just as described and the delivery was very fast, only two days! I am very satisfied with this purchase.

Too pricey for classroom use
Although I agree with some of the earlier reviewer's criticisms--particularly the arbitrary groupings of poets under artificial headings--I generally like the selections in this anthology.I was even more pleased with the companion volume of essays, which are difficult to find gathered together in one place.I wanted very badly to assign these volumes to my American Poetry course...but then I checked the price. Almost $75 for a paperback anthology?!And another $40 for the essay collection!Even the package deal comes in at about $115--for two books.As a faculty member at a large state university catering to a largely working-class student body, I can't, in good conscience, make my students purchase these books--not when I can get the new Oxford Book of American Poetry (which covers more historical ground), in hardback, for under $24. Selected essays, likewise, can be copied and put on electronic reserve at almost no cost.While I appreciate the quality and convenience of volumes like this, I believe that academic publishers can no longer ask faculty and students to foot the bill for outrageous production costs.

A Great Collection
The other reviewer of this particular anthology mentions some poetic giants that have been left out of the anthology, and I agree some of those poets should have been put in this anthology, but that being said, you can't have EVERY major poet put in an anthology, it would just become too large and too cumbersome to publish.

The editors of this collection give reasons in their introduction for why they've left out certain authors. All that being said.

This is a fantastic collection, and for someone who is just learning to appreciate Modern (Capital M) poets, this is a great place to start. Book is organized into specific poetic genre and styles and each work is prefaced with a small biogrpahy of the authors life and their work. I would reccomend it to anyone looking for getting into this particular genre of poetry. Cheers.

My Twentieth Century
Contemporary poetry's a notoriously fractious field. No one knows that better than Dana Gioia, who's worked hard to make a century of innovation and experiment conform to his idea of poetry as a popular, traditional, metrical art that just needs saving from the eggheads.

Gioia's New Formalist allegiances could have resulted in an interesting anthology, one that leavens the mavericks like Stein, Pound, Williams, etc.--folks in no danger of being erased from the story of Modern American poetry--with worthy figures of a more traditional bent (Weldon Kees, say) who risk being written out because they didn't rock the poetic boat as hard.

But an anthology that excludes key poets like Jack Kerouac, Ted Berrigan, Kenneth Koch, Alice Notley, Charles Bernstein, Bernadette Mayer, Clark Coolidge or Leslie Scalapino while finding room for Billy Collins, Kim Addonizio, Ted Kooser, and Linda Pastan shows that it's missed the main thrust of U.S. poetry over the last half century. The historical overviews add to the confusion by lumping together aesthetic tendencies or movements that have only tenuous connections with one another. The hugely influential poets of the New York School, for instance, get folded into Surrealism and Deep Image poetry under the arbitrary heading "American Internationalism" (when's the last time you heard anyone debating the poetic merits of American Internationalism? Or for that matter talking about Deep Image?), while New Formalism shares pride of place with Language poetry in a section marked simply "Contemporary Voices." That's kind of like shelving Mariah Carey with the Sex Pistols and calling it "Contemporary Pop."

I think the idea is to present American poetry as a chorus of diverse individual voices, relatively untrammeled by theories or schools. The bios that introduce the poets spend a remarkable amount of time talking about their marital status, college degrees, mentors, publication histories, and work life while saying surprisingly little about the roots of their poetics (except in cases where Gioia doesn't like the poetics, in which case he's not above a snarky aside. Re: Ron Silliman--"After high school, his education was sporadic, a curious fact in the life of a poet whose theories seemingly demand an academic audience." Ouch!). But the effect is that all the poets end up sounding about the same--well-educated, more or less married, happy information workers seemingly spit out of identical social backgrounds and winning interchangeable honors (this despite the anthology's scrupulous inclusion of minority voices).

In some ways the anthology reminds me of a more politic and cunning version of Philip Larkin's infamous Oxford Anthology of Twentieth-Century Verse--a conservative stab at reclaiming the twentieth century for the supposedly traditional literary values of craft, polish, formal mastery and judicious introspection. I think the genie's out of the proverbial bottle on this one though. America's grown too shaggy, druggy, political, ornery and just plain weird to quite fit the silhouette Gioia's chalked out for it here. And for anyone who cares about where U.S. poetry might go in the 21st century, that's a very good thing. ... Read more

Product Description
Providing a survey of the short story in-depth, the anthology encompasses a rich global and historical mix of the masterpieces of short fiction and presents them in a way readers find accessible, engaging, and relevant."Author Perspectives" -- short lively statements from 52 authors that discuss the writing process and refer to specific stories in the anthology. This unique feature provides readers with critical reflections and insight into the stories they are reading. "Critical Approaches to Fiction" -- introduces readers to 10 leading schools of critical theory in an accessible way.The Glossary of Literary Terms is the most complete glossary in a short fiction book on the market.For those interested in the short fiction genre. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Collection Covers Major Themes
This book has a great collection of stories and profound themes. One way to use this book is to pair up the stories. For example, one can look at "The Misfit's Misguided Quest for Love" by studying "Bartleby" by Melville and "The Overcoat" by Gogol.

Another good pairing is to study "Lost Love and Alcohol" by looking at "Babylon Revisted" by Fitzgerald and "The Swimmer" by John Cheever.In both stories the characters lose free will as their self-destructiveness reaches a point of no return.

The power of empathy to remove blindness can be found by looking at Raymond Carver's "A Small, Good Thing" and "Cathedral." Another great story about the power of empathy is Richard Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues."

Also take a look at "Gimpel the Fool" by Singer and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" to study the love and widsom of fools.

The dangers of intellectual pride are dramatized in Flanner O'Conner's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" and Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown."

Yet another fine pairing can be found by studying the conflict between romantic, personal love and public responsibility in Chekhov's "The Lady with the Dog" and John Updike's "Separating."

One of my favorite pairings is to study "The Love of the Tribe over the Love of Humanity" by studying "Those Who Walked Away from Omelas" and "The Lottery."

There are even far more stories than the ones I've mentioned. But these pairings give you an idea of how many themes you can study in a collection as rich as this one. ... Read more

Product Description

The smallest and most economical member of the Kennedy/Gioia family, Backpack Literature, 2/e, features the authors’ collective poetic voice which brings personal warmth and a human perspective to the discussion of literature, adding to students’ interest in the readings. 

Customer Reviews (11)

Better than expected
This book came in better condition than promised, and very quickly. I would highly recommend this vendor

backpack review
This book took eighteen days to get to me and it was not in good condition i was not very please with my purchase

Needed this for a Wrt-201-062 English Comp-2
Quick shipping and good seller. Im not a fan of this type of reading, but has many short stories and poems in it. If you likke this sort of reading this is a good book to sample many types of writers.
Cheers!

Book condition
The book is in acceptable condition only not in good condition as advertised. The cover is damaged with some writing inside. Prompt shipping is appreciated.

a little misleading
First off, it said the book would ship from within Kentucky, but it actually shipped from a different state, I think it was MI (showed on fedex tracking) but yet the sticker on return address still said Murry, KY. I bought the book because I am also in KY and thought it would ship faster, being in the same state. But it still took about a week. This book is also the "examination copy" but you wouldn't have known because there was a big sticker over those words. I took the sticker off because I did realize the cover looked different than other copies I had seen. There were several sticked that said USED BOOK on the cover, side and back, which I thought was downgraded the quality of the book. The stickers were very hard to come off and left alot of sticky residue.Although I do not know if the seller put them there, it could have been described better. I feel like I should have paid less for what I got. ... Read more

Product Description

The smallest and most economical member of the Kennedy/Gioia family, Backpack Literature is a brief paperback version of the discipline's most popular introduction to literature anthology.  Like its bigger, bestselling predecessors, Backpack Literature features the authors' collective poetic voice which brings personal warmth and a human perspective to the discussion of literature, adding to students' interest in the readings.   New features include:  thirty-nine stories of well-loved classics as well as accessible contemporary works; more than 237 of the discipline's greatest, most teachable poems; and a wonderful collection of 11 high-quality plays.

Customer Reviews (2)

Good
After product had shipped, I was notified that the product had water damage so they refunded $4 back to my account.

Great Book!
This book came brand new, in brand new condition. No creases or bends or highlighting, I'd say it was never opened! ... Read more