Living Name - by Mark Halliday

About the Book

"Living Name is a collection of essays on American poetry written by an expert practitioner of the art. Noted poet and critic Mark Halliday turns his attention to the work of poets who interest him because they create convincing voices of people dealing with everyday realities. Instead of trying to survey the vast variety of modern poetry, Halliday concentrates on a dozen American poets, ranging from Walt Whitman to contemporary writers such as Claire Bateman, including two essays each on Kenneth Fearing, Tony Hoagland, Kenneth Koch, and Dean Young. Each essay includes thorough close readings of individual poems, reflecting Halliday's commitment to the idea that a poem as a work of art needs to be appreciated as a unified whole. The style of the essays is judicious and meditative but not overly scholarly or academic; they are meant to appeal to readers who are not necessarily professors. A long essay at the beginning, "Poetry and the Rescue of Particulars," incorporates an examination of poems by great British and Irish poets of the past, as it develops a central argument that lyric poetry is fundamentally elegiac, stemming from a basic dissatisfaction with more readily available responses to loss. The impulse to write a poem, Halliday believes, often stems from the notion that representing in poetry a piece of human experience keeps it in the world, as a trace of the vanishing moment is retained and endowed with some form of transcendental lasting reality. Throughout Living Name, Halliday enacts the three commitments that have driven his criticism for many years: to listen for convincing individual voices in poetry; to try often to study whole poems, not merely passages; and to look for intelligent efforts to illuminate truths of human experience"--

Book Synopsis

Living Name is a collection of essays on American poetry written by an expert practitioner of that art. Poet and critic Mark Halliday turns his attention to the work of poets who interest him because they create convincing voices of people dealing with the everyday. Instead of trying to survey the vast variety of modern poetry, Halliday considers an idiosyncratic selection of poets he finds compelling for their originality of style and exploration of human possibilities, including Walt Whitman, Kenneth Fearing, Kenneth Koch, Robert Pinsky, Rachel Wetzsteon, Tony Hoagland, Claire Bateman, and Dean Young.

Each essay includes thorough close readings of individual poems, reflecting a commitment to the idea that a poem as a work of art needs to be appreciated as a unified whole. Halliday's writing is judicious and meditative but not overly scholarly or academic. A long piece at the beginning of the book, "Poetry and the Rescue of Particulars," argues that poems often attempt to reclaim the details of our usual routines from the chaotic confusion and noise of daily existence. The impulse to write a poem, Halliday believes, often stems from the notion that representing in poetry a sliver of human life keeps it in the world, as a trace of the vanishing moment is retained and endowed with some form of lasting reality.

Throughout Living Name, Halliday enacts the allegiances that have driven his criticism for many years: to listen for genuine voices in poetry; to study whole poems, not merely passages; and to look for intelligent efforts to illuminate truths of human experience.

Review Quotes

"For two decades now, I have considered Mark Halliday to be not merely a first-rate poet, but also perhaps the best writer about contemporary poetry that we have in this country. His prose is graceful, elegant, and inviting. His opinions, whether one agrees or not, are invariably invigorating and intelligent. He writes with the attention of someone who has made a lifetime's study not just of the craft of poetry but of its sources, purposes, and value to us."--Kevin Prufer, author of The Fears

"For Halliday, poems are frequently engaged in preserving what is past or passing; so too, his criticism recalls these poets to us with renewed force and a deepened appreciation. In the end, it is Halliday's 'spirit of caring attentiveness' (a quality he finds in Frank O'Hara) that restores these poets to our eyes and ears in all their lively, teeming, and enduring particulars. Acute, humane, and free of cant, this is first-rate criticism."--David Yezzi, author of Late Romance: Anthony Hecht--A Poet's Life

"Most of the pieces in Living Name are appreciations--not, commendably, unreserved ones--of some of Halliday's favorite poets. Close reading abounds: penetrating, sensitive, often revelatory. Every essay in the book is graced with Halliday's signature virtues: jargon-free eloquence, extreme sanity, humor, intelligence, self-awareness (often manifested in a willingness to qualify his own judgments), a generous sympathy for poetics (most notably Dean Young's) that differ from his own, all underpinned by a conception and exaltation of poetry as an art in service to humanity."--Daniel Brown, author of Subjects in Poetry

About the Author

Mark Halliday is the author of seven collections of poems, most recently Losers Dream On. His critical works include Stevens and the Interpersonal and, with Allen Grossman, The Sighted Singer: Two Works on Poetry for Readers and Writers. He is the winner of a National Poetry Series prize, the Juniper Prize in Poetry, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors. Halliday is Distinguished Professor of English at Ohio University.