What Is Poetry? | Jeff Dolven

What Is X?

Jeff Dolven and Justin E.H. Smith assay the hoard of poetry’s riches in this month’s episode: Is poetry a way of grasping at the treasures of language, past and present? Or might there be something that is particular to poetry, something unlike the pleasures and possibilities of other forms of literature? Countering Justin’s more extensive notion, Jeff offers that poetry is language that wants to happen “all at once.” Will Jeff and Justin be able to reach an agreement? Or will the goat bleat at the buzzer, before they can settle their differences? Listen in to find out. Along the way, they’ll discuss Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf and Edmund Spenser’s “Faerie Queene,” epic poetry versus novelistic prose, and the poetic doppelgängers Frank O'Hara and Thomas Wyatt.