American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics / Edition 1

by Claudia Rankine, Lisa Sewell

Overview

The ideal introduction to the current generation of American poets

Understanding the current moment in poetry can be a difficult task, as the reader must sort among the avant-garde and mainstream, the traditional and the experimental. A welcome introduction to contemporary poetics, this collection represents one of the first attempts to chart the progress of a new generation of poets. Each chapter focuses on one poet, and includes a selection of poems, a brief statement of purpose by the poet, and a critical essay by a notable scholar. Working in forms ranging from the post-confessional lyric to documentary poetics, from the prose poem and the sonnet to sound poetry, these thirteen poets rank among the most notable and distinct of recent years. American Poets in the 21st Century will serve as a useful and enlightening guide for any reader interested in how new American poetry can look, feel, and sound. The enclosed CD includes each of the thirteen poets reading their work.

Poets include: Joshua Clover, Stacy Doris, Peter Gizzi, Kenneth Goldsmith, Myung Mi Kim, Mark Levine, Tracie Morris, Mark Nowak, D.A. Powell, Juliana Spahr, Karen Volkman, Susan Wheeler, and Kevin Young.

Hardcover is un-jacketed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780819567284
Publisher:	Wesleyan University Press
Publication date:	07/09/2007
Series:	American Poets in the 21st Century Series
Edition description:	Audio CD.
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

CLAUDIA RANKINE is the Henry G. Lee Professor of English at Pomona College and author, most recently, of Don't Let Me Be Lonely (2004). LISA SEWELL is a professor of English at Villanova University and the author of Name Withheld (2006).

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
MARK LEVINE
Poems: "Work Song" (text and audio) — "Sculpture Garden" — "John Keats" — "Light Years" — "Ontario" — "Document" — "Then" — "Willow" (text and audio)
Poetics Statement
Critical Essay: Recording Devices: Mark Levine's Poetics of Evidence, by Sabrina Orah Mark
KAREN VOLKMAN
Poems: "I won't go in today" — "There comes a time to rusticate the numbers" — "I never wish to sing again as I used to" — "I never wish to sing again as I used to" (text and audio) — "O verb, o void" — "No noise subtracts it" — "It could be a bird that says summer" — "The first greeting on a bright sift" — "Brown is the flat gestation of a maze" — "What is this witness, the watching ages" — "Grey airs, grey stirs" — "Reticulation of a premise" (text and audio) — "Bitter seed—scarred semblance—psyche" — "The thing you do keep or claim" — "Lifting whither, cycle of the sift" (text and audio) — "One might start here"
Poetics Statement
Critical Essay: A Space for Desire and the Mutable Self: Karen Volkman's Experimentations with the Lyric, by Paul Otremba
D. A. POWELL
Poems: "[chapt. ex ex ex eye vee: in which scott has a birthday]" (text and audio) — " [when you touch down upon this earth. little reindeers]" — "[my lover my phlebotomist. his elastic fingers encircle my arm]" — "[you'd want to go to the reunion: see]" — "[so the theatre dimmed and reclined. cramped balcony rubbed against my leg]" — "[strange flower in my hands. porphyry shell. clipped wool]" — "[listen mother, he punched the air: I am not your son dying]" — "[darling can you kill me: with your mickeymouse pillows]" (text and audio) — "[when dementia begins: almost makes sense like hamburger translations]" — "[autumn set us heavily to task: unrooted the dahlias]" — "[between scott's asshole and his nmouth I could not say which I preferred: perfect similes]" — "[ode]" — "[who won't praise green. each minute to caress each minute blade of spring. green slice us open]" (text and audio)
Poetics Statement: The Flesh Failures
Critical Essay: Here Is the Door Marked heaven: D. A. Powell, by Stephen Burt
PETER GIZZI
Poems: "Beginning with a Phrase from Simone Weil" — "Revival" (text and audio) — "To Be Written in No Other Country" — "Plain Song" — "Château If" — "In Defense of Nothing" — "Untitled Amherst Specter" — "Last Century Thoughts in Snow Tonight"
Poetics Statement: Extract from a Letter to Steve Farmer
Critical Essay: Peter Gizzi's City: The Political Quotidian, by Cole Swensen
JULIANA SPAHR
Poem: "Gentle Now, Don't Add to Heartache" (text and audio)
Poetics Statement
Critical Essay: All Together/Now: Writing the Space of Collectivities in the Poetry of Juliana Spahr, by Kimberly Lamm
JOSHUA COLVER
Poems: "Baader Meinhof Three-Person'd God" — "At the Atelier Teleology" — "Poem (We always send it to the wrong address)" — "Chreia" (text and audio) — "Whiteread Walk" (text and audio) — "Whiteread Walk" (text and audio) — "Ceriserie" — "Year Zero" (text and audio)
Poetics Statement: Once Against (Into the Poetics of Superinformation)
Critical Essay: The Pleasures of not Merely Circulating: Joshua Clover's Political Imagination, by Charles Altieri
KEVIN YOUNG
Poems: "Defacement" — "Famous Negro Athletes" — "Fish Story" — "Nocturne" — "Night Cap" — "The Hideout"
Poetics Statement
Critical Essay: Mixed-up Medium: Kevin Young's Turn-of-the-Century American Triptych, by Rick Benjamin
TRACIE MORRIS
Poems: "a little" (text and audio) — "Untitled" (text and audio)
Poetics Statement: Sound Making Notes
Critical Essay: Improvisational Insurrection: The Sound Poetry of Tracie Morris, by Christine Hume
MYUNG MI KIM
Poems: From Commons: From "Lamenta" (text and audio) — From "Works"
Poetics Statement: Convolutions : the Precision, the Wild
Critical Essay: Making Common the Commons: Myung Mi Kim's Ideal Subject, by Warren Liu
STACY DORIS
Poems: From Conference — From Paramour: "A Month of Valentines" — From Knot (text and audio)
Poetics Statement: I Have to Check My e-mail
Critical Essay: The Poetics of Radical Constraint and Unhooked Bedazzlement in the Writing of Stacy Doris, by Caroline Crumpacker
SUSAN WHEELER
Poem: "The Debtor in the Convex Mirror" (text and audio)
Poetics Statement
Critical Essay: Susan Wheeler's Open Source Poetics, by Lynn Keller
MARK NOWAK
Poems: From "$00/Line/Steel/Train" — From "Capitalization" (text and audio) — From "Hoyt Lakes / Shut Down"
Poetics Statement: Notes toward an Anti-capitalist Poetics II
Critical Essay: Mark Nowak: Radical Documentary Praxis [Redux], by David Ray Vance
KENNETH GOLDSMITH
Poem: "Page One" from The Day (text and audio)
Poetics Statement: Being Boring
Critical Essay: Affect and Autism: Kenneth Goldsmith's Reconstitution of Signal and Noise, by Raymond McDaniel
CONTRIBUTORS
INDEX
AUDIO CD TRACK LIST

What People are Saying About This

Michael Davidson

“American Poets in the 21st Century offers an intelligent map of innovative currents within the recent generation of U.S. poets. Rankine and Sewell have made a brilliant selection among poets for whom linguistic experiment, public critique, and lyric expressivity are no longer antagonists.”

Elizabeth Gregory

“An essential guide for travelers into the world of contemporary poetry. Rankine and Sewell present a vibrant new generation of poets who synthesize a deep language consciousness with political and lyric practice.”

From the Publisher

"American Poets in the 21st Century offers an intelligent map of innovative currents within the recent generation of U.S. poets. Rankine and Sewell have made a brilliant selection among poets for whom linguistic experiment, public critique, and lyric expressivity are no longer antagonists."—Michael Davidson, professor of literature, University of CaliforniaSan Diego

"American Poets in the 21st Century offers an intelligent map of innovative currents within the recent generation of U.S. poets. Rankine and Sewell have made a brilliant selection among poets for whom linguistic experiment, public critique, and lyric expressivity are no longer antagonists."—Michael Davidson, professor of literature, University of California, San Diego

"An essential guide for travelers into the world of contemporary poetry. Rankine and Sewell present a vibrant new generation of poets who synthesize a deep language consciousness with political and lyric practice."—Elizabeth Gregory, author of Quotation and Modern American Poetry

Editorial Reviews

Based on the sample of poets in this book, one might think that 21st-century poetry is more grounded in language and sound than in concrete images or personal confessions. Even at its most avant-garde, the poetry that editors Rankine (Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric) and Sewell (Name Withheld) here present is often formal, e.g., Kenneth Goldsmith's versified retyping of an entire issue of the New York Times. The accompanying CD of the poets reading their work makes it possible to hear Tracie Morris's sound poems, which could not be reproduced in print. More traditional poets include Juliana Spahr, who celebrates a common American stream, and Susan Wheeler, whose "The Debtor in the Convex Mirror" bows to John Ashbery but has its own artistry. All of the poets are challenging, and many are inspiring. Following the poetry selections are a statement by the poet and a critical essay on his or her work. A web site (www.Wesleyan.edu/wespress/americanpoets.html) features more readings by the poets. A fine overview of contemporary poetry; highly recommended for academic libraries.
—Amy K. Weiss

Library Journal

"American Poets in the 21st Century offers an intelligent map of innovative currents within the recent generation of U.S. poets. Rankine and Sewell have made a brilliant selection among poets for whom linguistic experiment, public critique, and lyric expressivity are no longer antagonists."—Michael Davidson, professor of literature, University of CaliforniaSan Diego

"American Poets in the 21st Century offers an intelligent map of innovative currents within the recent generation of U.S. poets. Rankine and Sewell have made a brilliant selection among poets for whom linguistic experiment, public critique, and lyric expressivity are no longer antagonists."—Michael Davidson, professor of literature, University of California, San Diego

"An essential guide for travelers into the world of contemporary poetry. Rankine and Sewell present a vibrant new generation of poets who synthesize a deep language consciousness with political and lyric practice."—Elizabeth Gregory, author of Quotation and Modern American Poetry

From the Publisher