Verse and Worse: Selected and New Poems of Steve McCaffery 1989-2009 [Paperback]

Verse and Worse: Selected and New Poems of Steve McCaffery 19892009presents texts from the last two decades of work by Steve McCaffery, one of the most influential and innovative of contemporary poets. The volume focuses on selections from McCafferys major texts, includingThe Black Debt,Theory of Sediment,The Cheat of Words, andSlightly Left of Thinking, but also features a substantial number of previously ungathered poems. As playful as they are cerebral, McCafferys poems stage an incessant departure from conventional lyrical and narrative methods of making meaning. For those encountering McCafferys work for the first time as well as for those who have followed the twists and turns of his astonishingly heterogeneous poetic trajectory over the past four decadesthis volume is essential reading.

The Dangers of Poetry(for Italo Calvino) by Steve McCaffery

Maybe you dont like this poem or perhaps you dont want to read it perhaps you should do something else like wash last nights dishes or watch TV if I were you Id try reading a good book or even start to write one but perhaps you havent stopped reading this poem just yet while youre wondering what else you could read or perhaps your interest in this poem has miraculously changed maybe youre enjoying it or finding it a challenge or perhaps youre simply thinking it would be a waste of precious time having read it so far to not read it to the end or perhaps there's nothing you can do because perhaps this is a class that you cant get out of or the start of a conference you've paid a lot of money to attend or perhaps its a punishment prescribed in a minimum security prison youre now in for five or even ten years or perhaps reading this poem has induced paralysis and you cant move not even to blink your eyes or perhaps you believe it cant get worse but it does get worse and you think all these thoughts again and then compare this poem to the start of Itlƒ]