Artifice and Indeterminacy gathers the strongest and most representative writings of the past two decades and shows more clearly than ever before the depth and breadth of contemporary American poetics. Collectively, these essays break with conventional interpretive frameworks and traditional generic boundaries of poetry to give fresh voice to the poetics of our time.
Neither dismissive of the aesthetic value(s) of poetry, nor reluctant to articulate the ways in which aesthetic evaluation is complicated by the mediating influences of history, culture, class, gender, race, and academic status, the writers presented in this anthology celebrate the artifice of the poetic text while also accepting as a given the indeterminacy of its inception and reception.
Individual pieces range in style and approach from theoretical writings to discussions of individual poets such as Emily Dickinson, Louis Zukofsky, and Bob Kaufman. The authors consider such critical issues as gender and the possibilities of a feminist poetics, the textual politics of race and class, and the broader implications of an avant-garde practice.
CONTENTS / CONTRIBUTORS
Section 1: Form/Syntax/Speech
Charles Bernstein
Bob Perelman
Barrett Watten
Michael Davidson
Marjorie Perloff
Section 2: Pattern/Experience/Song
David Antin
Leslie Scalapino
Lyn Hejinian
John Taggart
Section 3: Institutions and Ideology
James Sherry
Ron Silliman
Steve McCaffery
Hank Lazer
Nathaniel Mackey
Maria Damon
Section 4: Poetics and Gender
Rae Armantrout
Rachel Blau DuPlessis
Susan Howe
