Coin of the Realm: Essays on the Life and Art of Poetry

The Award-winning poet Carl Phillips grapples with issues of authority, identity, and beauty in these sensual and deeply intelligent essays

The "coin of the realm" is, classically, the currency that for any culture most holds value. In art, as in life, the poet Carl Phillips argues, that currency includes beauty, risk, and authority-values of meaning and complexity that all too often go disregarded. Together, these essays become an invaluable statement for the necessary-and necessarily difficult-work of the imagination and the will, even when, as Phillips states in his title essay, "the last thing that most human beings seem capable of trusting naturally-instinctively-is themselves, their own judgment."

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 06/01/2004
ISBN: 9781555974015
Pages: 246
Weight: 0.79lbs
Size: 8.98h x 6.12w x 0.76d
Award: Society of Midland Authors Award - Honorable Mention

Review Citations: Library Journal 06/01/2004 pg. 134
Black Issues Book Review 11/01/2004 pg. 46
Multicultural Review 12/01/2004 pg. 59
Lambda Book Report 11/01/2004 pg. 14