Margaretta K. Mitchell conceived this volume after attending the celebrated Lunch Poems Reading Series at UC Berkeley. Her inspiration was to capture the faces of the poets who participated in the series — and her essay explores the role of portraiture, describing her studio sessions with these poets. Zack Rogow, poet, translator and coordinator of the Lunch Poems Reading Series, provides a general introduction and a brief biography of each poet. The foreword by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass puts the book in the context of the current poetry scene.
University of California Press, 386 pages, paperback edition 2006, available at Amazon
“These portraits speak to each other and to us with the voice of poetry. Margaretta’s mastery of the language of photography gives us insight into the poetic personae. The gestures bring meaning to the idea of poetry as originally spoken. What a fascinating series of faces!” —Ruth Bernhard
“The Face of Poetry is the ideal companion for any and every reader of contemporary poetry. The brilliant selections by Zack Rogow are consistently wise, eclectic, and diverse — both stylistically and ethnically — and Margaretta K. Mitchell’s masterly photographs of the poets are simply revelations. The Face of Poetry offers a luminous and complex portrait of American poetry at the height of its powers.” —David St. John, author of THE FACE: A Novella in Verse
