Defending Poetry:A Review of Jay Parini's Why Poetry Matters

Jay Parini's Why Poetry Matters is a new defense of poetry,which pays less attention to Plato's announcement to keep poetry out of the ideal republic than to the condition of poetry in our world.This defense can be understood from four aspects,namely,poetry,poets,world,and reader,in relation to which it explores issues such as language,metaphor,poetic form,the poet's personal voice,tradition and originality,the relation between poetry and politics and natural world,and the process of reading.The author is sensitive to language and good at excavating original meanings of words so as to explain them from new angles.He inherits the methodology of New Criticism and adopts useful ideas from different schools,thus interpreting poems with ease and richness.This book is open-minded,down-to-earth,and reader-oriented,proving that poetry still matters with accurate analyses and eloquent discourses.