Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms

This unique anthology has as its focus the notion of form in contemporary poetry. No subject has attracted more vigorous discussion within the community of poets and critics in the past ten years. If we are to understand what form is and how it shapes poetic expression, we must turn to the poems themselves for clues. And if we are very lucky, we can listen to the voice of the poets who wrote them.

In Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms, contemporary poets have selected one poem, commenting on the occasion of its creation and on the form the poem eventually took. Originally published in 1987 with a selection of 65 poets, this revised and expanded edition adds selections by twenty additional poets. Other revisions include an enlarged glossary of terms, and more expanded biographies of individual poets. The range of contributors is wide, and includes John Ashbery, John Cage, Rita Dove, Alice Fulton, Marilyn Hacker, Yusef Komunyakaa, James Merrill, Thylias Moss, Robert Pinsky, Charles Simic, and Richard Wilbur. Among the new contributions is Wyn Cooper's poem "Fun," which was the basis for Sheryl Crow's Grammy-award winning song "All I Wanna Do."

Praise / Awards

• "This anthology allows creative-writing students to feel as if they are actually sitting alongside the leading poets at their seminar tables. In these circumstances they can hash out and compare their own newly fashioned poetics with the published poets' more or less expedient ones. Surely this is a sensible pedagogical environment in which to talk about the process of composing poems."
  --Sewanee Review
  
• ". . . superlative. . . . Serious fun."
  --Daria Donnelly, Commonweal
  
• "With its extraordinary range of work Ecstatic Occasions suggests that the possibilities for poetry are endless."
  --Stacey Harwood, Times Union
  
• ". . . a rewarding glimpse of the passion and restraint, the control and the chaos, the artifice and the chance at work in those who practice poetry."
  --Publishers Weekly
  
• ". . . a virtual book of revelations for all those who have wondered what makes poems and poets tick."
  --Boston Book Review
  
• "Eliot once argued that an important poet creates the conditions under which he will be read and appreciated. The self-reflexive, virtually autobiographical currents in Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms undoubtedly are what render it so indispensable and unprecedented."
  --Boston Review
  
• "There's an abundance of sonnets, double sonnets, villanelles, pantoums, sestinas, and abecedaria. . . a useful and entertaining anthology."
  --Washington Post Book World
  
• "[A] generous and sharp-witted anthology . . . an intriguing and unusually informative glimpse into the creative process."
  --Newsday