Quetchenbach, Bernard W. 1955-

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QUETCHENBACH, Bernard W. 1955-

PERSONAL: Male. Born 1955.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of English, 111 Lake Hollingsworth Dr., Florida Southern College, Lakeland, FL 33801. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Florida Southern College, Lakeland, FL, associate professor of English.

WRITINGS:

Back from the Far Field: American Nature Poetry in the Late Twentieth Century, University of Virginia Press (Charlottesville, VA), 2000.

The Hermit's Act (poetry), Finishing Line Press (Cincinnati, OH), 2004.

Contributor of poetry and essays to periodicals and journals, including Organization & Environment, Sycamore Review, New Laurel Review, Albatross, Bellingham Review, Rosebud, and Petroglyph.

SIDELIGHTS: Bernard W. Quetchenbach's Back from the Far Field: American Nature Poetry in the Late Twentieth Century is an examination of postwar poetry and poets who advocate for the natural world in their writings, thus reflecting their ethical and spiritual values. In reviewing Brian Swann's Poetry Comes up Where It Can: An Anthology, H-Net Reviews contributor Patricia Monaghan referenced Quetchenbach's volume by noting that he argues that "poetry about nature is even more private than that on other subjects" and that "such poetry typically describes intensely private experiences rather than shared or communal moments in nature. Private moments far from the city comprise the greater proportion of today's natural poetry, as though the very presence of another human on a distant mountaintop destroys the wildness of it all."

In particular, Quetchenbach studies the work of American nature poets Robert Bly, Gary Snyder, and Wendell Berry, three writers he feels use a public voice in expressing their values. Bly focused on farmers in the northern United States, while Berry is inspired by the farms of his native Kentucky; the religious traditions of Native Americans can be read in the work of Snyder. "For general readers," noted Robert Chianese in Isis, "Quetchenbach provides a valuable, jargon-free overview of the contentious issues about which contemporary poets such as Snyder have fought with 'high moderns' such as T. S. Eliot. High moderns wanted to find new universals in world history, culture, and mythology and to express them in new, highly crafted forms. In the 1950s, the 'postmodern' contemporaries continued to free up poetic form even more but shifted their attention to the ordinary, the daily, the personal, and the local, so as to avoid totalizing universals. However, contemporary poets who treat nature eventually find themselves speaking in general, almost universal terms as well."

Christopher J. Knight wrote in American Literary History Online that Back from the Far Field "is a measured, thoughtful, and well-written book. Reading it, one experiences a fleeting satisfaction in knowing that a scholar can seriously and patiently devote himself or herself to what the world judges to be a small corner of life and come away with interesting things to say about it."