Poetry in general : how a literary form became public /
"In the second half of the twentieth century, poetry, broadly understood, leapt out of books and became an interdisciplinary public form. Poets drew on the world around them to engage with the arenas of work and politics in responding to the degradation of the social democratic notion of the pu...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Columbia University Press,
[2025]
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| Series: | Literature now.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | "In the second half of the twentieth century, poetry, broadly understood, leapt out of books and became an interdisciplinary public form. Poets drew on the world around them to engage with the arenas of work and politics in responding to the degradation of the social democratic notion of the public in the United States. During this period of privatization and public austerity, poetry strove to become a capacious force in the arts. However, recognizing a changing sense of agency in the restricted public sphere, the poets and works discussed in Poetry in General examine whether poetry can really do anything in a social or political sense. Beginning with the early 60s work of Fluxus artist, Yoko Ono, and New York School Poet, Frank O'Hara, Keegan Cook Finberg examines how these poets/artists drew upon and disrupted conventional ideas about work and the public sphere. Putting together techniques of both abstraction and confession, this expanded category of poetry made space for exchange and coalition-building within poetic production. 60s' optimism was soon replaced by fears of privatization that affected women in particular, and poets such as Adrian Piper and Bernadette Mayer drew on constraint-based forms to protest restricted abortion access and the stigmatization of welfare services. In the last part of the book, Finberg considers the response to the solidification of neoliberalism by examining poetry that interprets moments of atrocity and excess. Techniques of conceptual poetry and documentary poetics transformed official documents to critically examine contemporary politics. Examples include creative reworkings of an important legal case for abolition retold (NourbeSe Philip), the dialogue of an 11-hour filibuster to thwart anti-choice legislation (Wendy Davis), and credit documents from the 2008 recession (Mathew Timmons), which reveal public ways to read and interpret racial capitalism, anti-abortion legislation, and mass debt."-- |
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| Physical Description: | 251 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 23 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780231219211 0231219210 9780231219228 0231219229 |