Author Asks

1. The title Legitimate Dangers is inspired by a letter in which Robert Frost writes, "What are ideals of form for if we are not made to fear for them? All our ingenuity is lavished on getting into danger legitimately so that we may be genuinely rescued." Frost was referring to the importance of formal prosodic considerations—particularly meter and rhyme—in the composition process. While the poets in this anthology often shy away from established metrical forms and rhyme schemes, they tend to pay a tremendous amount of attention to the construction of their poems—the shapes their poems take, their rhythms and enjambments. How could the notion of "getting a reader into danger legitimately" apply to the poets in this book? Can Frost's quote be applied not only to structure and music, but also to content? How do the poems in this anthology take risks, and what makes these risks legitimate, or earned?

(Poems you might want to look at in answering this question include Karen Volkman's "May" and "The Case," Brian Teare's "Dead House Sonnet," Dan Chiasson's "Song for a Play," Dan Beachy-Quick's "Unworn," Stephen Burt's "Paysage Moralisé," Noelle Kocot's "I Am Like a Desert Owl, an Owl Among the Ruins," the "Vandals" poems of Alan Michael Parker, the selection from Olena Kalytiak Davis, and the sonnets of Joshua Beckman).

2. In his preface to the anthology, "Group Portrait with Yak," poet and memoirist Mark Doty identifies as one of the central characteristics of the poets in this collection their preference for "comic deflation, an omnipresent irony, a nervous humor, an edgy vaudeville" over "an assumed sincerity." Look carefully at the selections of a few of the poets in this volume, eg. Josh Bell, David Berman, Erica Bernheim, Mark Bibbins, Matthea Harvey, Steve Healey, Lisa Jarnot, Sabrina Orah Mark, Jeffrey McDaniel, D.A. Powell, and Matthew Rohrer. How do humor and irony function in the work of these poets? Do you feel these poets are sincere in the tone and world view they put forward? Is it possible for a poet to be both comic and dead serious, ironic and sincere?

3. Emily Wilson ends her poem "[Wind in bare vines…]" with the lines, "starved//animal standing/shy at the door I//wish for this/world I did not welcome." This is one of many examples of a speaker in this anthology representing themselves in a compromised state and expressing conflicted, even paradoxical, emotions about the world surrounding them. For other examples, see Oni Buchanan's poems "Room 40" and "The Term," Major Jackson's poems "Euphoria" and "Pest," Jennifer Grotz's "The Last Living Castrato," and Olena Kalytiak Davis's "Sweet Reader, Flannelled and Tulled." Are these and other poems in the book similar in their tone and feel? How do you account for the frequent occurrence of so many conflicted emotions in contemporary poetry?

4. Many of the poems in Legitimate Dangers are 1st person monologues. Pretend for a moment that ALL of the poems in this book are dramatic monologues uttered by the same speaker. After looking at 10-20 poems by different authors in this collection, how would you describe this imaginary single persona? What is at stake for this speaker? How does he/she view the world? That is, to what extent do these 85 poets share a common language? Are there generalizations that can be made about the practices and preoccupations of 21st century poetry based on the poems in this book?

5. Quite a few of the poets in this anthology seem to be interested in accruing energy through repetition and variation of words and grammatical structure, through lists and litanies. What examples can you find of lists and litanies in Legitimate Dangers? How do these techniques affect the poems they're employed in, and why do you think they're particularly prevalent in contemporary poetry?

6. Would you call any of the poems in this book "political"? Which ones, and why? What, to your mind, makes a poem a political poem? Consider, for example, the selections from Juliana Spahr and Lisa Jarnot, Natasha Trethewey's "Miscegenation," Greg Williamson's "Junkyard," Tracy K. Smith's "History," Ben Doyle's "The War is Over," Terrance Hayes's "Talk," Ilya Kaminsky's "Maestro," and Suji Kwock Kim's "Occupation." Are these political poems? How do they address political themes and issues?

7. This anthology is subtitled "American Poets of the New Century." While looking at the poems in this book, ask yourself if there is something distinctly "American" about American poetry? What does it mean for a poem to be an "American" poem? How do the poets in this book touch on what America or being American may mean for the speaker?

8. How do the poets in this approach writing about encounters with the Other, through experiences such as immigration and travel? Look for instance at the poems written about America's neighbors—"How to Look at Mexican Highways" by Mónica de la Torre, "O Canada!" by G.C. Waldrep, and "Canada" by Matthew Zapruder.

9. A large number of poems in this book deal intimately with topics such as love, desire, and sexuality. How do these poets—in both form and content—approach these themes? What is a love poem, exactly? Are the love poems in this book romantic in an expected way, or do these love poems defy expectations? How do these poems interrogate the motives of our sexual and romantic desires? You may wish to look particularly closely at the work of Josh Bell, Erica Bernheim, Oni Buchanan, Julianne Buchsbaum, Carrie St. George Comer, Jennifer Grotz, Lisa Jarnot, Paisley Rekdal, Tessa Rumsey, Richard Siken, Ann Townsend, Rebecca Wolff, Mark Wunderlich, C. Dale Young, and Kevin Young.

10. Consider how gender and sexual identity are treated in such poems as "Torn" by C. Dale Young, "Postfeminism" and "Panopticon" by Brenda Shaughnessy, "Atomic Bride" by Thomas Sayers Ellis, "The Girls" by Oni Buchanan, "Boot Theory" and "A Primer for the Small Weird Loves" by Richard Siken, "What Was There to Bring Me Delight But to Love and Be Loved?" by Paisley Rekdal, and "Countess P—‘s Advice for New Girls" by Natasha Trethewey. How do some of the poets in this book subvert traditional notions of gender and sexual identity?

11. One can argue that poets innately convey their personal approach to poetics and views on poetry through their poems. A poem that overtly takes on this project is called an "Ars Poetica" (Latin for "The Art of Poetry"). As editors, we strove to have one poem per poet, often the first in a selection, which would function in an ars poetical manner for that particular writer. Are there poems in Legitimate Dangers you think could be called Ars Poeticas? How and why?

12. The Confessional poets of the 1950's and 1960's (Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Sylvia Plath, W.D. Snodgrass, and others) wrote passionately, openly, and intimately about topics that had previously been viewed as private, inappropriate, unseemly, or taboo: divorce, alcoholism, madness, infidelity, unacceptable sexual desire or activity, abuse, and suicide. Could one draw parallels between some of the subjects of Confessional poetry and some of the poets in this anthology? Could some of the poets in this book be termed "post-Confessional": which ones and why? If you're familiar with the work of poets such as Sharon Olds, Louise Glück, Marie Howe, Kim Addonizio, Susan Hahn, and Mark Doty, whose work has at times been labeled as post-Confessional by critics, what differences do you see in terms of form and approaches to content between poets such as Olds and Howe, and the poets in this book? How do the writers in the anthology variously approach confession and transgression in the poems? You may want to pay particularly close attention to the poems of Oni Buchanan, Dan Chiasson, Olena Kalytiak Davis, Nick Flynn, Major Jackson, Lisa Jarnot, D.A. Powell, Richard Siken, Ann Townsend, Pimone Triplett, and Suzanne Wise.

13. American poets in the latter half of the 20th century frequently turned to the personal narrative. Do the poets in Legitimate Dangers tend to revisit their past? In his preface, Mark Doty asserted that the poets in this book "presume the biographical stuff of selfhood is pretty much uninteresting." To what extent do you agree? Can you find any counterexamples? Are these poets approaching narrative, in general in odd or unexpected ways? (cf. Joe Wenderoth's "Narrative Poem" or Suzanne Wise's "50 Years in the Career of an Aspiring Thug"). How do the poets in the anthology attempt to convey deeply personal experiences, such as childhood and adolescence, marriage and divorce, motherhood and fatherhood?

14. How do the poets in this book approach themes of mortality in their work? Look at some of the more elegiac poems in the book (for instance, A. Van Jordan's "Public Radio Plays Eddie Harris," Rick Barot's "Eight Elegies," Corey Marks's "Portrait of a Child," Mark Wunderlich's "Fourteen Things We're Allowed to Bring to the Underworld," Natasha Trethewey's "Native Guard" and "Genus Narcissus," Tessa Rumsey's "Assembling My Shepherd," D.A. Powell's "[coda & discography]," Kevin Prufer's "The End of the City," Maurice Manning's "On Death," and Joel Brouwer's "‘Kelly, Ringling Bros. Oldest Elephant, Goes on Rampage'"). To what extent are these poems traditional elegies? If not, how do they differ from your understanding of the elegy as a poetic form?

15. Do you consider some of the poems in this book "complex"? What makes a poem complex? Is difficulty primarily a function of content, or a function of composition? How do you feel about the issue of difficulty in contemporary poetry? Do you feel that complexity is a relative concept?