{"product_id":"the-education-of-a-young-poet-9781640091108","title":"The Education of a Young Poet","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"Biespiel's supple memoir of becoming a poet will surely inspire other writers to embrace the bodily character of writing and feel the power and, sometimes, the emptiness of the act of writing poetry.\" --\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Education of a Young Poet\u003c\/i\u003e is David Biespiel's moving account of his awakening to writing and the language that can shape a life. Exploring the original source of his creative impulse--a great-grandfather who traveled alone from Ukraine to America in 1910, eventually settling as a rag peddler in the tiny town of Elma, Iowa--through the generations that followed, Biespiel tracks his childhood in Texas and his university days in the northeast, led along by the \"\"pattern and random bursts that make up a life.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHis book offers an intimate recollection of how one person forges a life as a writer during extraordinary times. From the Jewish quarter of Houston in the 1970s to bohemian Boston in the 1980s, from Russia's Pale of Settlement to a farming village in Vermont, Biespiel remains alert to the magic of possibilities--ancestral journeys, hash parties, political rallies, family connections, uncertain loves, the thrill of sex, and lasting friendships. Woven throughout are reflections on the writer's craft coupled with a classic coming-of-age tale that does for Boston in the 1980s what Hemingway's A Moveable Feast did for Paris in the 1920s and Broyard's Kafka Was the Rage did for Greenwich Village in the 1950s. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRestless with curiosity and enthusiasm, \u003ci\u003eThe Education of a Young Poet\u003c\/i\u003e is a singular and universal bildungsroman that movingly demonstrates, \"in telling the story of one's coming into consciousness, all languages are more or less the same.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDavid Biespiel\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of \u003ci\u003eA Long, High Whistle\u003c\/i\u003e, a collection of pieces drawn from his long-standing column in \u003ci\u003eThe Oregonian\u003c\/i\u003e about writing and poetry that won the 2016 Oregon Book Award for General Nonfiction. He has also written five books of poetry, most recently \u003ci\u003eCharming Gardeners\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Men and Women\u003c\/i\u003e, which was named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Poetry Foundation and received the 2011 Oregon Book Award for Poetry, and a book on creativity, \u003ci\u003eEvery Writer Has a Thousand Faces\u003c\/i\u003e. He is the editor of the Everyman's Library edition of \u003ci\u003ePoems of the American South\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eLong Journey: Contemporary Northwest Poets\u003c\/i\u003e, which received the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. He writes the Poetry Wire column for \u003ci\u003eThe Rumpus\u003c\/i\u003e. Among his honors are a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, and a Lannan Fellowship. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his family.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Catapult","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51260117844242,"sku":"9781640091108","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_8b4ae572-7278-4372-936b-55ad418d7e55.jpg?v=1746636861","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-education-of-a-young-poet-9781640091108","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}