Reading the difficulties : dialogues with contemporary American innovative poetry / edited by Thomas Fink and Judith Halden-Sullivan.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Fink, Thomas, 1954- editor.

Halden-Sullivan, Judith, 1955- editor.

Series:

Modern and contemporary poetics

Modern and Contemporary Poetics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry--History and criticism.

American poetry.

Poetics.

Poetry--Explication.

Discourse analysis, Literary.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

vi, 229 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, [2014]

Summary:

Definitions of what constitutes innovative poetry are innumerable and are offered from every quarter. Some critics and poets argue that innovative poetry concerns free association (John Ashbery), others that experimental poetry is a "re-staging" of language (Bruce Andrews) or a syntactic and cognitive break with the past (Ron Silliman and Lyn Hejinian). The tenets of new poetry abound. But what of the new reading that such poetry demands? The essays in Reading the Difficulties offer case studies in and strategies for reading innovative poetry. They allow readers to interact with verse that deliberately removes many of the comfortable cues to comprehension-poetry that is frequently non-narrative, non-representational, and indeterminate in subject, theme, or message. Book jacket.

Contents:

Reading the Difficulties / Thomas Fink Fink, Thomas, Judith Halden-Sullivan Halden-Sullivan, Judith 1

Thank You for Saying Thank You / Charles Bernstein Bernstein, Charles 15

Reading and Reading / Elizabeth Robinson Robinson, Elizabeth 18

Of Course Poetry Is Difficult / Poetry Is Not Difficult / Hank Lazer Lazer, Hank 28

Articulating a Radical and a Secular Jewish Poetics: Walter Benjamin, Charles Bernstein, and the Weak Messiah as Girly Man / Stephen Paul Miller Miller, Stephen Paul 41

Reading the Posthuman Subject in The Alphabet / Burt Kimmelman Kimmelman, Burt 70

Cooking a Book with Low-Level Durational Energy; or, How to Read Tan Lin's Seven Controlled Vocabularies / Kristen Gallagher Gallagher, Kristen 93

Engaging with (the Content of) John Bloomberg-Rissman's 2nd Notice of Modifications to Text of Proposed Regulations / Eileen R. Tabios Tabios, Eileen R. 105

Bursting at the Seams: Exploding the Confines of Reification with Creative Constraints in Sleeping with the Dictionary / Carrie Conners Conners, Carrie 111

The Game of Self-Forgetting: Reading Innovative Poetry Reading Gadamer / Judith Halden-Sullivan Halden-Sullivan, Judith 127

The Utopian Textures and Civic Commons of Lisa RobertsonÆs Soft Architecture Christopher Schmidt 146

Problems of Context and the Will to Parsimony: Reading "Difficult" Recent U.S. Poetry / Thomas Fink Fink, Thomas 157

Some Notes on bpNichol, (Captain) Poetry, and Comics / Paolo Javier Javier, Paolo 178

Crossing the Corpus Callosum: The Musical Phenomenology of Lisa Jarnot / Jessica Lewis Luck Luck, Jessica Lewis 188

Extrapolatia / Sheila E. Murphy Murphy, Sheila E. 201.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780817357528

0817357521

OCLC:

844728782