Description
Book SynopsisOn Autumn Lake collects four decades of prose (1976-2020) by renowned poet and beloved cult figure Douglas Crase, with an emphasis on idiosyncratic essays about quintessentially American poets and the enduring transcendentalist tradition.
Douglas Crase’s prose is rich with conviction and desire, inspiring as John Yau wrote, “the kind of attention usually reserved for poetry.” His essays, written as rhythmically as poems, take a personal rather than abstract approach, offering committed and sometimes intimate portraits of John Ashbery, James Schuyler, Lorine Niedecker, and others. With generosity of spirit, Crase shares his devotion to poetry, democracy, and landscape in this handsome volume that greatly enlarges the available body of his work and will be seen as the essential complement to his collected poems.
Trade Review“Gracefully wrought essays imbued with a rare intimacy.” — Kirkus (Starred Review)
“The future awaits us and Crase has set the bar high for all of us. May we live up to his example.” — g emil reutter, North of Oxford
"This is easily the finest collection of prose I’ve read in years." — rob mclennan
"Four decades of critical writing from poet Crase (The Revisionist) come together in this intensive collection... Crase is skeptical about calling the pieces criticism; rather, 'they are appreciations or predilections, though to be truthful they were more like affairs of the heart, affairs of attention and intellectual desire, rather than criticism.'" — Publishers Weekly
Table of ContentsI. Introduction
II. Four Saints On Autumn Lake: John Ashbery
A Voice Like the Day: James Schuyler
Make It True: James Schuyler
The Poet’s So-called Prose: Marianne Moore
A Schuyler Ballade
Note on Niedecker
Free and Clean: Lorine Niedecker
Niedecker and the Evolutional Sublime
III. How Emerson Avails
How Emerson Avails
A Brief History of Memes
Native Genius: Richard Poirier
An Outsider’s Introduction to Emerson
IV. The Prophetic Ashbery
Remarks on Ashbery
The Prophetic Ashbery
Justified Times: John Ashbery
V. The New York School Revisited
Unlikely Angel: Dwight Ripley and the New York School
The Drawings of Dwight Ripley
A Hidden History of the Avant-Garde
The New York School Revisited VI. Traditions Ahead Poetry and the Menace Ahead
The Enduring Influence of a Painter’s Garden: Robert Dash
Statement on Form
The Pyrrhic Measure in American Poetry: John Koethe, Marjorie Welish
The Applause of Science: George Bradley
The Civic Metonymy of Michael Schiavo Three Introductions: Ann Lauterbach, Gerrit Henry, Marjorie Welish
Apertures on a Virtual Field: Michelle Jaffé
Deborah Rosenthal’s Art of Deep Time
Mark Milroy Paints My Portrait
In the Empire of the Air: Donald Britton
VII. Updates
VIII. Appendix: A Conversation with Ian Pople
IX. Index
