Raymond P. Hammond, American poet and critic
Raymond P. Hammond is an American poet, critic and editor of the New York Quarterly magazine since assuming control after the death of William Packard in 2002.Hammond was born August 31, 1964 in Roanoke, Virginia. Packard had "willed" the magazine by asking Hammond in writing to take control of the magazine should anything happen to him.Hammond is the author of Poetic Amusement. Originally written in 2000 as his Master's thesis, Poetic Amusement was passed around underground as a digital file for ten years among those associated with the New York Quarterly. What began as Hammond's observations of the influence of "po' biz" and writing programs on contemporary American poetry became a timeless treatise on poetry itself. Using his experience with NYQ and devouring many literary critics across the ages from the ancient Greeks to contemporary critics, Hammond examines at once both our current literary environment and the essence of poetry. In seeking to answer the questions "What is poetry?" and "Where does poetry come from?" for himself, he encourages readers to ask those questions for and of themselves as well.