Description

Spanning a period of fifteen years, these five 'Inter-views' with Richard Berengarten explore the many facets of his writings. Hospitably and expansively, they yield insights into the work of a poet of our time, his methods, motives, and patterns of thought.

Based in dialogue, an interview is always a collaborative venture. It discovers difference and clarifies commonalities between writer and reader. By working closely together in composing, editing and revisiting transcripts for each interview, Richard Berengarten and his five interlocutors reveal the potential of the literary interview itself, as they articulate and test its reticent boundaries.

"The sheer range of poetic canons to which Berengarten's oeuvre responds has enabled him to put down 'multiple roots' in a number of literary traditions." - Norman Jope

"Berengarten's poetry invites readers to glimpse at the mechanics of multivocal, multilingual poetry: its attraction works by bringing one closer not simply to what is not one's own, but also to what is." - Maria Filippakopoulou

"Richard Berengarten is a poet for 'a time of need'. His poetry witnesses, commemorates, laments, affirms and blesses." - Paul Scott Derrick

"Berengarten's combination of Englishness, Europeanness and Jewishness, and thus his sense of himself as an inheritor of multiple overlapping identities, are core elements of his poetic constitution." - Anthony Rudolf