The Hatred of Poetry

Praise for The Hatred of Poetry: "Loathing rains down on poetry, from people who have never read a page of it as well as from people who have devoted their lives to reading and writing it . . . Mr. Lerner skates across this frozen lake of pique with delicate skill . . . The book achieves its goal in the most circuitous of ways: by its (lovely) last sentence, Mr. Lerner might get you longing for the satisfactions of the thing you're conditioned to loathe." --Jeff Gordinier, New York Times "The Hatred of Poetry does a brilliant job showing how poets 'strategically disappoint' our assumptions about what the medium should do . . . Engaging . . . Superbly written . . . [Lerner's] granular, giddy analysis of Scottish bard William Topaz McGonagall, 'widely acclaimed as the worst poet in history, ' fascinates as the negative expression of a Parnassian ideal. It's also comedic gold." --Katy Waldman, Slate "The Hatred of Poetry is one of the best denunciations of the genre of lyric poetry I have read--and one of the more intriguing defenses . . . it offers two for the price of one, and this is its insight." --Meghan O'Rourke, Bookforum "Lerner is a fine critic, with a lucid style and quicksilver mind . . . But perhaps most remarkable is just how entertaining, how witty and passionate and funny, The Hatred of Poetry is . . . Reading it is less like overhearing a professor's lecture than like listening to a professor entertain a crowd of students over pints after class." --Anthony Domestico, The Christian Science Monitor "Lerner is able to trace not just the many roots and motivations of the collective disdain for poetry (from Plato first defriending it, to the Italian Futurists trying to explode it), but also its function as a crucial fuel to push it forward." --Michael Andor Brodeur, The Boston Globe "An important essay . . . it doubles as a self-conscious ars poetica from a major American writer." --Jonathon Sturgeon, Flavorwire "With this book-length essay, novelist and poet Lerner demonstrates that hating on poetry is reserved not only for critics--it is also the national pastime of poets." --Jeremy Spencer, Library Journal "Mr. Lerner's essay becomes most interesting when he ventures into more contemporary territory, attacking with polemic zeal what he sees as confused critical assaults on modern poetry . . . Mr. Lerner shows if we constantly think poetry is an embarrassing failure, then that means that we still, somewhere, have faith that it can succeed." --The Economist "Perhaps The Hatred of Poetry is most compelling when reflecting on how poetry shapes our childhoods. Adults are eager, Lerner asserts, to return to that time of nursery rhymes, when language was rich in possibility, when meaning was still something to be discovered." --Ben Purkert, The Rumpus In lucid and luminous prose, poet and novelist Lerner (10:04) explores why many people share his aversion to poetry, which he attributes, paradoxically, to the deeply held belief that poetry ought to have tremendous cultural value. . . Lerner's brief, elegant treatise on what poetry might do and why readers might need it is the perfect length for a commute or a classroom assignment, clearing a space for both private contemplation and lively discussion. --Publishers Weekly (starred review) Lerner argues with the tenacity and the wildness of the vital writer and critic that he is. Each sentence of The Hatred of Poetry vibrates with uncommon and graceful lucidity; each page brings the deep pleasures of crisp thought, especially the kind that remains devoted to complexity rather than to its diminishment. --Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts Praise for Ben Lerner: Just how many singular reading experiences can one novelist serve up? . . . Lerner obviously loves playing with language, stretching sentences out, folding them in on themselves, and making readers lau

Ben Lerner was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1979. He has received fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Foundations, and is the author of two internationally acclaimed novels, Leaving the Atocha Stationand 10:04. He has published three poetry collections: The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw, and Mean Free Path.Lerner is a professor of English at Brooklyn Colleg