| Abstract: | Acts of Poetry examines the rhetoric, history, and practice of postwar American poet's theater. American poet's theater proliferated in the postwar period, when rich, performance-oriented poetry and theater scenes came together on the makeshift stages of urban coffee houses, shared apartments, and underground theaters. And yet its importance and history have been almost entirely ignored by critics. Acts of Poetry shines a spotlight on the practice of poet's theater by examining key groups and practitioners. Bringing together cultural history and criticism, it maps poet's theater in relation to performance practices such as poetry readings, avant-garde theater, and conceptual art and demonstrates not only the emergence of poet's theater in the postwar period but its continuation and legacy today. |
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