By H. L. Hix

If you were stranded on some far slope of Parnassus and could bring only one book to map the landscape, As Easy As Lying would be a good choice. Accessible, erudite, and ebullient, these essays delve into the workings of the poetic mind and offer incisive assessments of contemporary American poets and poetics. Hix not only maps the landscape, he reshapes it: taking on nabobs like John Ashbery ("Every age adores a few poets in whose work posterity maintains no interest") and presenting such disparate figures as Charles Bernstein and Dana Gioia in new light, discovering the missing link between the Neo-Formal and the Post-Modern. As Easy As Lying is the best book on Modern American poetry since Robert Hass's Twentieth Century Pleasures.

H. L. Hix teaches in and directs the creative writing MFA at the University of Wyoming. In addition to his books from Etruscan - a poetry collection, Shadows of Houses, a collection of essays on poetry entitled As Easy As Lying, and an anthology, Wild and Whirling Words - he has published a number of other books of poetry, poetry in translation, and criticism. His poetry has been recognized with the Grolier Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Peregrine Smith Award, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

paperback / 160 pages / ISBN: 0-9718228-3-2 / $17.95
publication date: September 2002