Though he lived most of his life in the remote village of Deya on the island of Mallorca, Robert Graves (1895--1985) was conversant with the most important issues of this century and was acquainted with many of the most powerful people. Jorge Luis Borges called him "a soul above." Graves wrote almost restlessly on subjects of great diversity: myths of the Greeks, Romans, Hebrews, and Celts; modern science and economics; contemporary society and culture as well as of ancient Greece and Rome, of Celtic Wales and Ireland, of the time of Milton, and of the American Revolution. He was a poet of great fame, a celebrated writer of historical novels, and the man who imprinted the name and identity of the White Goddess upon the cultural language. His translations of Latin classics have been applauded; his recastings of Biblical and Persian texts attracted irascible attention from scholars. He was a poet of great fame, a celebrated writer of historical novels, and the man who imprinted the name and identity of the White Goddess upon the cultural language. His translations of Latin classics have been applauded; his recastings of Biblical and Persian texts attracted irascible attention from scholars.

Robert Graves: From Great War Poet to Good-bye to All That casts new light on the life, prose and poetry of Graves, without which the story of Great War poetry is incomplete. The writer and poet Robert Graves suppressed virtually all of the poems he had published during and just after the First World War. Until his son, William Graves, reprinted almost all the Poems About War in 1988, Graves's status as a 'war poet' seems to have depended mainly on his prose memoir (and bestseller), Good-bye to All That. None of the previous biographies written on Graves, however excellent, attempt to deal with this paradox in any depth. Robert Graves the war poet and the suppressed poems themselves have been largely neglected – until now. Jean Moorcroft Wilson, celebrated biographer of poets Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg and Edward Thomas, relates Graves's fascinating life during this period, his experiences in the war, his being left for dead at the Battle of the Somme, his leap from a third-storey window after his lover Laura Riding's even more dramatic jump from the fourth storey, his move to Spain and his final 'goodbye' to 'all that'. In this deeply-researched new book, containing startling material never before brought to light, Dr Moorcroft Wilson traces not only Graves's compelling life, but also the development of his poetry during the First World War, his thinking about the conflict and his shifting attitude towards it.

Like many men of his generation, poet Robert Graves was indelibly marked by his experience of trench warfare in World War I. The horrific battles in which he fought and his guilt over surviving when so many perished left Graves shell-shocked and disoriented, desperately seeking a way to bridge the rupture between his conventional upbringing and the uncertainties of postwar British society. In this study of Graves's early poetry, Frank Kersnowski explores how his war neurosis opened a door into the unconscious for Graves and led him to reject the essential components of the Western idea of reality—reason and predictability. In particular, Kersnowski traces the emergence in Graves's early poems of a figure he later called "The White Goddess," a being at once terrifying and glorious, who sustains life and inspires poetry. Drawing on interviews with Graves's family, as well as unpublished correspondence and drafts of poems, Kersnowski argues that Graves actually experienced the White Goddess as a real being and that his life as a poet was driven by the purpose of celebrating and explaining this deity and her matriarchy.

Conversations with Donald Hall offers a unique glimpse into the creative process of a major American poet, writer, editor, anthologist, and teacher. The volume probes in depth Hall’s evolving views on poetry, poets, and the creative process over a period of more than sixty years. Donald Hall (1928–2018) reveals vivid, funny, and moving anecdotes about T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the sculptor Henry Moore; he talks about his excitement on his return to New Hampshire and the joys of his marriage with Jane Kenyon; and he candidly discusses his loss and grief when Kenyon died in 1995 at the age of forty-seven. The thirteen interviews range from a detailed exploration of the composition of “Ox Cart Man” to the poems that make up Without, an almost unbearable poetry of grief that was written following Jane Kenyon’s death. The book also follows Hall into old age, when he turned to essay writing and the reflections on aging that make up Essays after Eighty. This moving and insightful collection of interviews is crucial for anyone interested in poetry and the creative process, the techniques and achievements of modern American poetry, and the elusive psychology of creativity and loss.

How does a writer approach a novel about a real person? In this new collection of interviews, authors such as Emma Donoghue, David Ebershoff, David Lodge, Colum McCann, Colm Tóibín, and Olga Tokarczuk sit down with literary scholars to discuss the relationship of history, truth, and fiction. Taken together, these conversations clarify how the biographical novel encourages cross-cultural dialogue, promotes new ways of thinking about history, politics, and social justice, and allows us to journey into the interior world of influential and remarkable people.

Diane di Prima (1934–2020) was one of the most important American poets of the twentieth century, and her career is distinguished by strong contributions to both literature and social justice. Di Prima and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) edited The Floating Bear (1962–69), one of the most significant underground publications of the sixties. Di Prima’s poetry and prose chronicle her opposition to the Vietnam War; her advocacy of the rights of Blacks, Native Americans, and the LGBTQ community; her concern about environmental issues; and her commitment to creating a world free of exploitation and poverty. In addition, di Prima is significant due to her challenges to the roles that American women were expected to play in society. Her Memoirs of a Beatnik was a sensation, and she talks about its lasting impact as well. Conversations with Diane di Prima presents twenty interviews ranging from 1972 to 2010 that chart di Prima’s intellectual, spiritual, and political evolution. From her adolescence, di Prima was fascinated by occult, esoteric, and magical philosophies. In these interviews readers can see the ways these concepts influenced both her personal life and her poetry and prose. We are able to view di Prima’s life course from her year at Swarthmore College; her move back to New York and then to San Francisco; her studies of Zen Buddhism; her fascination with the I Ching, Paracelsus, John Dee, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, alchemy, Tarot, and Kabbalah; and her later engagement with Tibetan Buddhism and work with Chögyam Trungpa. Another particularly interesting aspect of the book is the inclusion of interviews that explore di Prima’s career as an independent publisher—she founded Poets Press in New York and Eidolon Editions in California—and her commitment to promoting writers such as Audre Lorde. Taken together, these interviews reveal di Prima as both a writer of genius and an intensely honest, direct, passionate, and committed advocate of a revolution in consciousness.

Because Charles Wright occupies a large space in contemporary American poetry, it is only natural that his readers over the years have wanted to engage him in conversation and discover more about his career and inspirations. In this collection of richly detailed interviews conducted between 1979 and 2006, Wright eloquently discusses a range of topics, including the beginning of his poetic career in Italy, his experiences at the University of Iowa, the American and European influences on his work, contemporary poets he admires, his place in Southern literature, the art of translating poetry, and such formal matters as his lineation and rhythmic phrasing, his use of syllabics, and the development of his characteristic style. An extensive bibliography of writings by and about Wright supplements the interviews.

The poet Robert Graves' use of material from classical sources has been contentious to scholars for many years, with a number of classicists baulking at his interpretation of myth and his novelization of history, and questioning its academic value. This collection of essays provides the latest scholarship on Graves' historical fiction (for example in I, Claudius and Count Belisarius) and his use of mythical figures in his poetry, as well as an examination of his controversial retelling of the Greek Myths. The essays explore Graves' unique perspective and expand our understanding of his works within their original context, while at the same time considering their relevance in how we comprehend the ancient world.

"The book is organized around five distinct themes that include studies on Graves's own literary criticism, offer new insights into his poetry, produce commentary on his often overlooked fictional output, make some reflections on the origins and importance of his White Goddess, and examine some literary crosscurrents that have pollinated Graves's work."--BOOK JACKET.