A Poetics of Impasse in Modern and Contemporary American Poetry (Modern and Contemporary Poetics) - Softcover

Schultz, Susan M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0817351981 ISBN 13: 9780817351984

Publisher: University Alabama Press, 2005

Synopsis

A noted critic addresses the problem of silence in contemporary experimental poetry. 

Silence, as Susan M. Schultz argues here, is an intellectual and aesthetic force, largely unacknowledged, that is a characteristic feature of much avant-garde poetry, from Hart Crane to Susan Howe; a strategy deployed by various poetic, academic, and aesthetic partisans in efforts to quell competing discourse; and also a potent aesthetic strategy in itself. 

In a collection of case studies, Schultz examines specific incidents of silence and the impasses it creates in the poetic and academic landscape.  She looks at the issue of professionalism, in both poetic practice and the academy, which has become the caretaker of much of modern and contemporary poetry and their competing values.  She explores clothing and fashion as central metaphors for this professionalism (what are the 'outfis' and intellectual fashions of the day?), especially the metaphor of language as clothing in the poetry of Laura Riding, Charles Bernstein, and Lois-Ann Yamanka.  Schultz further explores the problem of formalism in the work of Riding and Crane, whose extremity in experimentation led to their silencing by the poetic establishment, a problem later overcome by poets such as John Ashbery and Bernstein.  And she examines silence as an aesthetic strategy in itself, particulary in the work of Howe, who wresltes with the Puritan legacy of male "pro-fessors" in the clergy ministering to female "con-fessors."

The result is an extended meditation on the precarious balance amoung competing forces-formalism, professionalism, gender, and voice-in understanding and liberationg poetic discourse from the realms of silence and the impasses it creates.

  

About this title

Book Description:

Silence, as Susan M. Schultz argues here, is an intellectual and aesthetic force, largely unacknowledged, that is a characteristic feature of much avant-garde poetry, from Hart Crane to Susan Howe; a strategy deployed by various poetic, academic, and aesthetic partisans in efforts to quell competing discourse; and also a potent aesthetic strategy in itself. 

In a collection of case studies, Schultz examines specific incidents of silence and the impasses it creates in the poetic and academic landscape.  She looks at the issue of professionalism, in both poetic practice and the academy, which has become the caretaker of much of modern and contemporary poetry and their competing values.  She explores clothing and fashion as central metaphors for this professionalism (what are the 'outfis' and intellectual fashions of the day?), especially the metaphor of language as clothing in the poetry of Laura Riding, Charles Bernstein, and Lois-Ann Yamanka.  Schultz further explores the problem of formalism in the work of Riding and Crane, whose extremity in experimentation led to their silencing by the poetic establishment, a problem later overcome by poets such as John Ashbery and Bernstein.  And she examines silence as an aesthetic strategy in itself, particulary in the work of Howe, who wresltes with the Puritan legacy of male "pro-fessors" in the clergy ministering to female "con-fessors."

The result is an extended meditation on the precarious balance amoung competing forces-formalism, professionalism, gender, and voice-in understanding and liberationg poetic discourse from the realms of silence and the impasses it creates.

From the Back Cover:

A noted critic addresses the problem of silence in contemporary experimental poetry. 

Silence, as Susan M. Schultz argues here, is an intellectual and aesthetic force, largely unacknowledged, that is a characteristic feature of much avant-garde poetry, from Hart Crane to Susan Howe; a strategy deployed by various poetic, academic, and aesthetic partisans in efforts to quell competing discourse; and also a potent aesthetic strategy in itself.  Through the essays in this collection, Schultz offers an extended meditation on the precarious balance among competing forces of formalism, professionalism, gender, and voice in understanding and liberating poetic discourse from the realms of silence and the impasses it creates.
Susan M. Schultz is Professor of English at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and Publisher of the literary press Tinfish which specializes in experimental poetry from the Pacific. Editor of The Tribe of John: Ashbery and Contemporary Poetry, her own work has appeared in An Anthology of New American Poets and three collections, most recently And Then Something Happened.

“This book is tantalizing, informed, and insightful; written with appealing geniality (and at times an equally appealing rancor).”--Jed Rasula, author of Syncopations: The Stress of Innovation in Contemporary American Poetry

About this edition

• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0817351981
• ISBN 13: 9780817351984
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256