Inventions on the Brink - by J T Barbarese (Paperback)

About the Book

"Inventions on the Brink, a collection of literary journalism by J. T. Barbarese, offers engagingly plainspoken and informed essays on American poetry from Edgar Allan Poe to the present, written by a poet with long experience in the classroom. The collection discusses writers as divergent as Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound, Hart Crane and A. R. Ammons, Gerald Stern and John Prine. It includes a separate section of essays examining the craft of translation with attention to specific works translated from ancient Greek, Italian, and modern French. A distinguishing feature of the book is that it is informed by literary theory but independent of any particular critical modality. Barbarese writes about literature for a general audience, particularly readers with wide tastes interested in engaging with literary art. His essays are the outcome of deeply reading and internalizing work he has known, studied, and admired over the course of a long career of publishing, teaching, and public lecturing"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Inventions on the Brink, a collection of literary journalism by J. T. Barbarese, offers engagingly plainspoken and informed essays on American poetry from Edgar Allan Poe to the present, written by a poet with long experience in the classroom. The collection discusses writers as divergent as Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound, Hart Crane and A. R. Ammons, Gerald Stern and John Prine. It includes a separate section of essays examining the craft of translation with attention to specific works translated from ancient Greek, Italian, and modern French.

A distinguishing feature of the book is that it is informed by literary theory but independent of any particular critical modality. Barbarese writes about literature for a general audience, particularly readers with wide tastes interested in engaging with literary art. His essays are the outcome of deeply reading and internalizing work he has known, studied, and admired over the course of a long career of publishing, teaching, and public lecturing.

Review Quotes

"Barbarese is a poet-critic-translator worthy of the attention of his greatest literary influence, Ezra Pound. Anything he writes is thus a real achievement worthy of a contemporary reader's careful exploration, contemplation, and considered judgment. For such a reader receives at Barbarese's hands a true education."--Daniel T. O'Hara, author of Virginia Woolf and the Modern Sublime: The Invisible Tribunal

"J. T. Barbarese writes engagingly and imaginatively about poets from Poe and Pound to A. R. Ammons and John Prine. He wears his learning lightly, listens carefully for the music, and contains multitudes. Inventions on the Brink is a pleasure to read and ponder, from start to finish."--Jackson Lears, author of Conjurers, Cranks, Provincials, and Antediluvians: The Off-Modern in American History

PRAISE FOR J. T. BARBARESE
"A poet . . . whose perceptions are idiosyncratic, often comically so (especially his seeing), but always insightful and strikingly original."

--Prairie Schooner

"The freshness of his language matches perfectly--abets, I should say--the freshness and candor of his world view."--David Yezzi

About the Author

J. T. Barbarese, professor emeritus of English at Rutgers University, is the author of six books of poetry, including Sweet Spot and True Does Nothing. His recent translations include After Prévert: Poems from "Paroles," and his work has appeared in publications such as The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Poetry magazine, and Times Literary Supplement.