Marbles on the Floor: How to Assemble a Book of Poems

by Virginia Konchan (Editor), Sarah Giragosian (Editor)

Overview

Marbles on the Floor: How to Assemble a Book of Poems was conceived from a poetic dialogue on how to shed light on the art and science behind the material construction of a poetry collection, and to generate a conversation around an art form too-long hermetically obscured. This anthology of interconnected essays (craft, lyric, and critical) explores the art and technique of poetry manuscript assembly as articulated by poets in all stages of their careers. Stylistically innovative, the essays range in conception from lyrical meditations, close readings, extended metaphors (including bookshelf assembly, cooking, caring for one's mother, and bonsai trees), and an F.A.Q for writers seeking to ask the hard questions of their manuscripts, and themselves. Theorizing the poetry manuscript process through creative and aleatory means and celebrating the richness and depth of our poetic origins and legacies, this anthology, a primer in autopoiesis, is a timely, invaluable, and compact resource for creative writing teachers, as well as emerging and established poets honing their craft. Writers in other genres (fiction and non-) will also benefit from this widely applicable yet nuanced and craft-based discussion of how to bring a book into being from vital contemporary perspectives on the narrative and lyric traditions.

Contributors: Diane Seuss, Heather Treseler, Christopher Salerno, Annie Finch, Stephen Kampa, Alyse Knorr, Harvey Hix, Karyna McGlynn, Philip Metres, Kazim Ali, Cyrus Cassells, and Victoria Chang

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781629222547
Publisher:	University of Akron Press, The
Publication date:	03/07/2023
Series:	Akron Series in Poetry
Pages:	225
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Virginia Konchan is the author of the poetry collections Bel Canto (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2022), Hallelujah Time (Véhicule Press, 2021), Any God Will Do, and The End of Spectacle (Carnegie Mellon, 2020 and 2018), and a short story collection, Anatomical Gift (Noctuary Press, 2017). Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Yale Review, Boston Review, and The Believer.

Sarah Giragosian is the author of the poetry collection Queer Fish, a winner of the American Poetry Journal Book Prize (Dream Horse Press, 2017) and The Death Spiral (Black Lawrence Press, 2020). Sarah's writing has appeared in such journals as Orion, Ecotone, The Missouri Review, Tin House, and Prairie Schooner, among others. She teaches at the University at Albany-SUNY.

Table of Contents

Restless Herd: Some Thoughts on Order
Diane Seuss

Poems as Paintings: Life-Drawing in Words
Heather Treseler

FAQ: from Press Authors, Graduate Students, and Editing Clients
Christopher Salerno

The Body of the Poetry Manuscript: Patterning Your Collection with Structural Repetition
Annie Finch

The Shapes of Books
Stephen Kampa

Writing on the Wall: A Mystery
Alyse Knorr

Some Assembly Required
Harvey Hix

Leaping Between Seams: What Analog Collage Taught Me About Sequencing a Book of Poems
Karyna McGlynn

Dreaming the Total Poem, Assembling the Counterarchive, Writing the Refuge
Philip Metres

Dear Unexplainable
Kazim Ali

Mystery and Legacy in Shaping a Manuscript
Cyrus Cassells

Of Bonsais and Moons: An Epistolary on Making a Book of Poems
Victoria Chang

Editorial Reviews

If I teach graduate or undergraduate creative writing again, I will assign this book. The introduction and discussion questions provide a helpful study guide, and the wonderfully various essays offer something for every intellectual bent and poetic style: those who want theory or practice; to make their own rules; intuitive and logical thinkers; poets seeking fellowship and comfort in the assembly challenge; poets seeking masterful nuts and bolts advice to make their manuscript publication-ready—this collection includes approaches for all.

April Ossmann (independent editor and author of Event Boundaries)

If you want to know how the sausage gets made, this book is for you. These vibrant essays about the making of poetry books don’t reveal secret spices or gross ingredients, but they do offer candid observations, illuminating anecdotes, and the capacious wisdom of long and varied experience. These writers’ eclectic pragmatism and intellectual rigor will have you taking notes, making lists of things to try, and laughing out loud. Whether you are inclined to use narrative or allergic to narrative, aspiring to create a book that achieves an arc or sparks a detonation, these essays inquire into craft principles beyond raw versus cooked, Dionysian versus Apollonian, standalone lyric versus orchestrated collection. Throughout, rich analogies make craft principles gorgeously tangible: Victoria Chang on the care of bonsais, Diane Seuss on adolescent Emily Dickinson’s herbarium, Harvey Hix on assembling bookcases, Kazim Ali on public architecture, Karyna McGlynn on collage, among many others. Along the way, there are tips, touchstones, master classes, close readings, and crowd-sourced surveys from some of the best minds writing and thinking about poetry today.

B. K. Fischer

What happens when a stack of poems becomes a book? In Marbles on the Floor, twelve acclaimed poets respond, offering insight on their personal and critical approaches to arranging a book of poems. The writers generously make themselves the subjects of study as they describe their movement from generating poems to the fine detail work of cultivating a collection. The essays here test metaphorical lenses from bonsai care to bookshelf assembly as they describe the process of building a book. However, they also give plenty of practical advice about the oddities of what exactly to do with your poems, from spreading them across the floor to asking them, “How are you today?” (Chang). These poets approach the art of order as one of productive multiplicity, guided by experimentation and play as relationships within each manuscript become visible. No one here will tell you what a poetry book must be, only what it can. You’ll find here the esprit de corps of poetry book arrangers, a call to joy and rebellion in this part of our vocation. No matter one’s thoughts about generation, order, or even what a poetry “book” intends to make happen, these essays are full of empathy and good advice.

Kate Partridge

It should be required reading for graduate students in creative writing, and it will be invaluable to poets who are writing or revising a manuscript. —Zach Savich, On the Seawall

The creative, experimental, and reflective potential found in this book is of great value to any poet or teacher of poetry. —Mitchell R. James, Journal of Creative Writing Studies

From the Publisher