Synopses & Reviews
Artifice and Indeterminacy gathers the strongest and most representative writings of the past two decades and shows more clearly than ever before the depth and breadth of contemporary American poetics. Collectively, these essays break with conventional interpretive frameworks and traditional generic boundaries of poetry to give fresh voice to the poetics of our time.Neither dismissive of the aesthetic value(s) of poetry, nor reluctant to articulate the ways in which aesthetic evaluation is complicated by the mediating influences of history, culture, class, gender, race, and academic status, the writers presented in this anthology celebrate the artifice of the poetic text while also accepting as a given the indeterminacy of its inception and reception. Individual pieces range in style and approach from theoretical writings to discussions of individual poets such as Emily Dickinson, Louis Zukofsky, and Bob Kaufman. The authors consider such critical issues as gender and the possibilities of a feminist poetics, the textual politics of race and class, and the broader implications of an avant-garde practice.
CONTENTS / CONTRIBUTORS
Section 1: Form/Syntax/Speech
Charles Bernstein
Bob Perelman
Barrett Watten
Michael Davidson
Marjorie Perloff
Section 2: Pattern/Experience/Song
David Antin
Leslie Scalapino
Lyn Hejinian
John Taggart
Section 3: Institutions and Ideology
James Sherry
Ron Silliman
Steve McCaffery
Hank Lazer
Nathaniel Mackey
Maria Damon
Section 4: Poetics and Gender
Rae Armantrout
Rachel Blau DuPlessis
Susan Howe
Synopsis
“A heady anthology of superb critical essays.” —Contemporary Literature “An admirable and indeed successful attempt to clear the opaque waters of contemporary poetics. . . . timely, perspicacious, and fascinating. The essays collected here should inform readings of a far wider range of texts than the introduction’s emphasis on the avant-garde so modestly suggests, and than our historical tendency to taxonomies of poetry would usually permit.” —American Studies “Beach usefully brings together a number of influential essays and excerpts from larger studies by Language poets and by a growing number of university-based critics and scholars interested in Language-oriented work.” —Times Literary Supplement Contributions by: Charles Bernstein, Bob Perelman, Barrett Watten, Michael Davidson, Marjorie Perloff, David Antin, Leslie Scalapino, Lyn Hejinian, John Taggart, James Sherry, Ron Silliman, Steve McCaffrey, Hank Lazer, Nathaniel Mackey, Maria Damon, Rae Armantrout, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Susan Howe
Synopsis
This collection brings together the most important writings on contemporary poetics by poets and critics who have shaped and defined the contemporary literary avant-garde.
About the Author
Christopher Beach is Assistant Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine.