On Poetry, Culture, and Democracy

"Robert Pinsky belongs to that rarest category of talents, a poet-critic."-Robert LowellTwo important books of criticism by the Pulitzer Prize finalist and former U.S. poet laureate-now combined in a single volume with a new preface by the authorFor Robert Pinsky, poetry's individual, human scale as a fundamentally vocal medium-with poems brought to life by one person at a time-gives poetry a unique importance in American and democratic culture and society. This book brings together two compelling works of criticism by the former poet laureate-The Situation of Poetry and Democracy, Culture and the Voice of Poetry, in which he makes a passionate and eloquent case for the vital role of poetry in a democracy.