On Autumn Lake

Douglas Crase is an independent poet and essayist. He was born in Michigan in 1944, raised on a farm, and educated at Princeton. A former speechwriter, he was described in the Times Literary Supplement as “the unusual case of a contemporary poet whose most public, expansive voice is his most authentic,” and in Hyperallergic as “that rare figure in American letters: a subversive who challenges the received wisdom promulgated in English and American literature departments from sea to shining sea.” His first book, The Revisionist, was named a Notable Book of the Year in 1981 by The New York Times and nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award and a National Book Award in poetry. His collected poems, The Revisionist and The Astropastorals, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and named a Book of the Year for 2019 in both the Times Literary Supplementand Hyperallergic. His dual biography of influential aesthetes Rupert Barneby and Dwight Ripley, Both: A Portrait in Two Parts, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and named a Stonewall Honor Book by the American Library Association. He has received a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a MacArthur “genius” award. He lives with his husband, Frank Polach, in New York and Carley Brook, Pennsylvania.

“Gracefully wrought essays imbued with a rare intimacy.” — Kirkus (Starred Review)“The future awaits us and Crase has set the bar high for all of us. May we live up to his example.” — g emil reutter, North of Oxford"This is easily the finest collection of prose I’ve read in years." — rob mclennan"Four decades of critical writing from poet Crase (The Revisionist) come together in this intensive collection... Crase is skeptical about calling the pieces criticism; rather, 'they are appreciations or predilections, though to be truthful they were more like affairs of the heart, affairs of attention and intellectual desire, rather than criticism.'" — Publishers Weekly

• I. Introduction II. Four SaintsOn Autumn Lake: John Ashbery A Voice Like the Day: James Schuyler Make It True: James Schuyler The Poet’s So-called Prose: Marianne Moore A Schuyler Ballade Note on Niedecker Free and Clean: Lorine Niedecker Niedecker and the Evolutional Sublime III. How Emerson Avails How Emerson Avails A Brief History of Memes Native Genius: Richard Poirier An Outsider’s Introduction to Emerson IV. The Prophetic Ashbery Remarks on Ashbery The Prophetic Ashbery Justified Times: John Ashbery V. The New York School Revisited Unlikely Angel: Dwight Ripley and the New York School The Drawings of Dwight Ripley A Hidden History of the Avant-Garde The New York School RevisitedVI. Traditions AheadPoetry and the Menace Ahead The Enduring Influence of a Painter’s Garden: Robert Dash Statement on Form The Pyrrhic Measure in American Poetry: John Koethe, Marjorie Welish The Applause of Science: George Bradley The Civic Metonymy of Michael SchiavoThree Introductions: Ann Lauterbach, Gerrit Henry, Marjorie Welish Apertures on a Virtual Field: Michelle Jaffé Deborah Rosenthal’s Art of Deep Time Mark Milroy Paints My Portrait In the Empire of the Air: Donald Britton VII. Updates VIII. Appendix: A Conversation with Ian Pople IX. Index