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A Long High Whistle:

Selected Columns on Poetry

Oregon Book Award for Nonfiction

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"One of the best books about reading poetry you will ever find." 

— Library Journal (starred review)

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Over the course of ten years, David Biespiel published a brief, dazzling essay on poetry every month in what became the longest-running newspaper column on poetry in the U.S.

 

Collected here for the first time, these enormously popular essays, many of which have been revised and expanded, offer a fresh and refreshing approach to the reading and writing of poetry. With passion, wit, and common sense, they articulate a profound and entertaining statement about the mysteries of poetry and about poetry's essential role in our civic and cultural lives. This collection will provide anyone, from the beginning poet to the mature writer to the lover of literature, with insights into what inspires poets, how poems are written and read, and how poetry situates itself in American life.

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BUY THIS BOOK

 "A perfect introduction to how to read a poem; Biespiel doesn't tell us how to read, instead he simply shows us. One of the best books about reading poetry you will ever find."  

— Library Journal (starred review)

 

"A splendid meditation on reading and writing poetry."  

— Critical Mass

 

"These columns are smart, entertaining, personal, and personable, qualities that allow them to speak to both card-carrying poetry lovers as well as people who have never heard of an iamb."

The Rumpus 

 

"Biespiel’s warmth and respect for his readers is reflected in prose that, like William Zinsser’s classic On Writing Well, makes us care about, and be alert to, the wonders of metaphor."  

— Bostonia

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*****

A Long High Whistle: Selected Columns on Poetry

Antilever Books

2015

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