Retrievals

“I adore [Caples’] prescription to read widely and even perversely; and his breezy style is engaging.” –Don Share

“Caples’ discussions are careful, nuanced, personal, and opinionated.” –Steven Fama

“Caples is part of a younger generation of writers reinvigorating contemporary poetry by combining modernist and Language-poetic verbal angularity with the sheer enthusiasm and lustiness of adolescence.” —Publishers Weekly

“Caples supplies us with a full aesthetic meal, with alarming images right out of the French Surrealists. He also means what he says; regardless of any implications to the contrary, Caples is writing out of emotion, even well-done sentiment.” —Rain Taxi

From “Theory on Retrievals”

The concept of the poet-critic has always been a compelling one to me; it’s hard not to admire 19th century French poets like Gautier, writing elegant prose in newspapers on topics the general public was more interested in reading about than it was in reading his poetry. (I’ve never been one to hold the general public’s lack of interest in poetry against it; that’s the way of the world.) The compensation was that being a poet gave one a certain license as a critic to roam among all the arts.

Retrievals is a book of essays written over the course of ten years about underrecognized poets, unfairly discredited critics, and artists obscured by more famous relations.

Garrett Caples is the author of The Garrett Caples Reader (Angle Press/Black Square Editions, 1999), Complications (Meritage Press, 2007), and Quintessence of the Minor (Wave Books, 2010). He is the co-editor of The Collected Poems of Philip Lamantia (University of California Press, 2013). He is the poetry editor at City Lights Books, and curates the Spotlight Poetry Series there. He has a PhD in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and lives in Oakland.