Argument and Song

14 essays which appeared in journals such as The American Poetry Review, Antaeus, The Greenfield Review, The Ohio Review and Books.

From Back of book:

"Stanley Plumly brings the knowledge of an initiate to the 'sources and silences' of his art. He honors John Keats with the informed intimacy of actual practice. These essays reveal the mysterious drama of great poetry and its makers as supremely useful: a sustaining presence for the future, for the next poem. And Plumly honors us in his own generation of poets by his stringent, generous, and wide-ranging attention. This book of a poet's lifelong obsession with poetry is both a shrewd, practical handbook and a luminous exploration of principles." Robert Pinsky