About Poetry

The purpose of About Poetry is to offer a contextual account of the poetry of Peter Riley. Of course, it is a poetry that speaks for itself, but in About Poetry we also have the voice of the poet himself in counterpoint. To understand aspects of the origin of that voice led to the inclusion of two autobiographical essays. The essays and interviews are not only about Peter Riley's poetry, its transition through five decades, but also the landscape of contemporary poetry. Much of what is said here explores the poetics of that landscape, its achievements, contradictions, creative diversions and its vitality. "I think the way to read poetry is with very bad eyesight, so you have to screw up your brows and peer at the words in front of your face one by one, filling the visual field, the black quarry before you and the pale air all around. So that you would only go to this trouble with a telegram of some concern. And secondly to believe everything you hear for as long as you can." -Peter Riley, XIV PIECES, Longbarrow Press, 2012.