De/Compositions

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet W.D. Snodgrass redefines poetry criticism by illustrating how the poems we love could have been written differently - or worse - badly. Snodgrass actually rewrites poems by authors ranging from Elizabeth Bishop to Shakespeare, and displays the reworked version side-by-side with the original, so one can appreciate the subtle shifts that occur - word by word, line by line, stanza by stanza - and gain a better understanding of the astonishing merits of the original work.