The Long View Essays on the Discipline of Hope and Poetic Craft

Robert Pack is a poet, critic, and director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. In this volume he offers 20 essays on the craft of writing and the nature of lyric poetry. He pays homage to those master poets whose high achievements have inspired his own work, and he reflects on human mortality and the consolations that help us to survive - the related pleasures of poetry, laughter, and music.