My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing

ISBN: 0300274149

Author: Phillips, Carl

Condition: New

An invaluable companion for any writer seeking to make the writing life a more complex and cooperative ventureIlluminating, deeply endearing essays.-Ron Charles, Washington PostA lovely, loving letter to aspiring writers.-Diego Báez, BooklistIn these intimate and eloquent meditations, the award-winning poet Carl Phillips shares lessons he has learned about the writing life, an apprenticeship to what can never fully be mastered. Drawing on forty years of teaching and mentoring emerging writers, he weaves his experiences as a poet with the necessary survival skills, including ambition, stamina, silence, politics, practice, audience, and community.In the tradition of Anne Lamotts Bird by Bird, Rainer Maria Rilkes Letters to a Young Poet, and Marcus Aureliuss Meditations, this is an invaluable companion for writers at every stage of their journey. Phillipss book serves as a partner in speculation and an invitation to embrace mystery.