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the New York Quarterly



Poetic Amusement by Raymond P. Hammond Released by Athanata Arts, Ltd.

08/31/2010
Athanata Arts, Ltd.
raymondhammond.com
The publisher, Peter Arcese, writes: "I am pleased, make that thrilled, to announce the publication of Poetic Amusement by
Ray Hammond. Now you no longer have to be afraid to ask "Where do poems
come from?" I've been referring to Ray's work in this book for years.
Now you can read the complete argument for yourself."

Originally written in 2000 as his Master's thesis, Raymond P. Hammond's Poetic Amusement has been passed around underground as a digital file for ten years among those associated with The New York Quarterly.
As provocative today as it was when it was written, what began as
Hammond's observations of the influence of "po' biz" and writing
programs on contemporary American poetry became a timeless treatise on
poetry itself. Using his experience with NYQ and devouring many literary
critics across the ages from the ancient Greeks to contemporary
critics, Hammond examines at once both our current literary environment
and the essence of poetry. In seeking to answer the questions "What is
poetry?" and "Where does poetry come from?" for himself, he encourages
readers to ask those questions for and of themselves as well. Relevant
and accessible to readers and writers of poetry and to those who think
they don't know or want to know what poetry is, Poetic Amusement will anger, elevate and inspire all those who read it.