Odyssey and Other Poems, 2nd Edition

Contemporary poetry is dominated by an adherence to the poetics ofIndeterminacy, in which tuneless chaos prevails over music and meaning.In their determination to subvert the traditional conventions of poetry,contemporary poets dismiss, in their practice, all the time-honored devicesthat make poetry, such as, for example, rhythm and rhyme, symboland song. That is to say, they dismiss Auden's famous formulation thatpoetry is "memorable speech"-a unique and compelling combination ofsound and sense. Rather than joining my peers in their nihilistic revels, my intention, on thecontrary, is to employ the traditional practices of poetry to achieve Auden'sideal. Taking that ideal as my own; that is, taking the practice of suchgreat modernists as Dickinson, Robinson, Yeats, Rilke, Pound, Eliot, Cavafy,Stevens, Hart Crane, and Auden, I seek-against the indeterminacy that definescontemporary poetic practice-to make poems memorable for their music andmeaning, their sound and sense. Thus, whether attempting a lyrical love poem or a poignant memoir of mygrowing up in Philly's Little Italy, my intention is to create a dramatic poetrythat is to be spoken as well as read, heard as well as seen. Therefore, my poetrystands as a direct challenge to the nihilistic conception of poetry that rules thecontemporary literary landscape.