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Incredible collection of poetic manifestoes!
I read this book - well most of it - while in graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh. This book had a pretty nice spot in my head and heart because I associated it with my first brush with "the other side" of rhetoric, composition & writing studies.I took a course on political poetry and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a very sharp group, and the readings were all very deep and meaningful to me at the time. I re-read this book at the start of the summer to try to orient myself toward some...
There are about three essays in here I wish I had read before I even thought about reviewing books for Phoebe. "State of the Art" thinks about the "Balkanization" of poetry, the necessarily decentered, marginal role of poetry, the utility of voices that refuse the universal. Makes a case for thinking just as hard about the context of the book before passing judgment on the content. Similarly, "Optimism and Critical Excess" makes a case for the importance of the claims a poet/poetry makes for its...
A little dated. Good thoughts and still some interesting thought on modern poetry, but the essays are starting to feel out-dated and remnants of the culture wars from the early 1990s.
It felt like he was trying to call his writing poetry because it was lineated. Some good ideas, though.
I kept reading, thinking eventually I'd understand, but I never did.