About this book

"As a series of stories in which ten different, fictional first-person narrators (ranging from an aide at a home for retarded adults to a waitress to a clown in a traveling carnival) write about ten different poets. The Poetry Life brings to life in unprecedented fashion the immense farce that poetry can have in people's lives. In stories that are variously funny, tender, sad, and edgy, the narrators register how poetry has changed how they see themselves, how they live, and what they care about."--book jacket.