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"[W]ith that capacious energy of the best American writing, Biespiel chronicles a range of seemingly disconnected things — screaming nighthawks, Boston bookstores, the Roman poet Catullus...his metaphors are often memorable because he doesn’t just make them, he dives in and flushes them out. As a result, a number of scenes flow breathlessly across the page...[to] convey a sense of mystery, suggest unexpected connections, evoke emotional riches."

— Los Angeles Review of Books

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"In his beguiling voice . . . Biespiel shows himself to be exhilarated as much by failure as by success in writing; his poetry reveals aspects of his inner world to him and shows him how to live better. Biespiel’s supple memoir of becoming a poet will surely inspire other writers to embrace the bodily character of writing and feel the power and, sometimes, the emptiness of the act of writing."

— Publishers Weekly (starred review)​

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"Tracing the evolution of a poet's passion...lyrical, affectionate anecdotes about friends and family round out the author's graceful reflections on creativity." 

— Kirkus Reviews

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"Poet and critic David Biespiel's...lyrical fugue of a memoir charmingly mixes meditation and memories, spans generations and oceans . . . Poetry lovers will be enthralled . . . this book is fascinating and sometimes even enchanting...the final chapter, "Suit," is pure magic."

— Library Journal (starred review)

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"Woven throughout the memoir are inspiring anecdotes about leading a literary life, including insights into the craft of writing and the power of language in everyday life and in literature."

— Poets & Writers

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"The Education of a Young Poet is filled with unassuming but riveting observations...that show not only how important poetry is to daily life but also how it’s, in fact, inextricable from life. This book will make you appreciate poetry more. And if you’re a poet, it will make you proud to be one."

— The Rumpus

 

"To say his memoir is simply a reflection or another coming-of-age tale would miss the mark...Indeed, the memoir feels so prophetic. I had to remind myself I was reading about a writer's past." 

— Empty Mirror

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"The richness of Biespiel’s visionary insights recalls the epiphanies in another literary predecessor, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. His vivid prose throws into a relief what Virginia Woolf calls 'daily miracles, illuminations,' like 'matches struck unexpectedly in the dark'...As a match newly struck, The Education of a Young Poet recovers a dream-like glow of this world. For Biespiel, poetry is just as ingrained in its thematic subjects—suffering and compassion and democracy and citizenship—as it is invested in the power of the metaphor to reshape such stuff of life. The author’s journey restores our sense of the visionary power of language." 

— Carolina Quarterly

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"In this rich memoir, poet Biespiel traces his personal literacy narrative, reflecting on his ancestors’ lives, his childhood in Texas, and his college years in Boston and their effects on his development as a writer. Fun anecdotes—having a conversation with a not-yet-famous Tracy Chapman while riding the T to a Mondale rally on Boston Common, drinking beer and discussing poetry with classmate Marc Maron (CAS’86) at the Dugout—add to the book."

― BU Today

 

"What a memorable, companionable, and singular book. I can't think of another contemporary memoir that has this mix of political and literary intelligence, all embedded in a personal story that is told with great candor, historical consciousness, and wit. How I wish it had existed when I was a young poet!" 

― Christian Wiman

 

"Whether he is writing about poetry, politics, competitive diving, or the glories of great conversation, Biespiel’s recurring subject is the tension between freedom and discipline — between the sublime release of our own wildness, and the precision that comes only from exquisite self-control. Part memoir, part ars poetica, The Education of a Young Poet is a feast: of language, of memory, and of insights into how one young writer came into his own.”

― Patrick Phillips

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“I love the scope of The Education of a Young Poet, which opens fifty years before the author’s birth. What better way of expressing the idea that poetry, like all art, is a matter of lineage, growing in equal part out of what we learn and who we are? Indeed, what David Biespiel has in mind here is less a craft book—although there are great craft riffs—than a memoir, a kind of portrait of the artist as a young man. ‘Feeling alien within the familiar,’ Biespiel describes it, the sensation of being a new poet. It’s as good a description as I’ve seen for the mix of distance and proximity, alienation and empathy, that all art requires, and perhaps most especially that of poetry.”

― David L. Ulin

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*****

The Education of a Young Poet

Counterpoint Press

2017