American Women Poets in the 21st Century

by Rankine, Claudia; Spahr, Juliana

• ISBN13: 9780819565464
• ISBN10: 0819565466
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-07-01
• Publisher: Wesleyan Univ Pr

Summary

Poetry in America is flourishing in this new millennium and asking serious questions of itself: Is writing marked by gender and if so, how? What does it mean to be experimental? How can lyric forms be authentic? This volume builds on the energetic tensions inherent in these questions, focusing on ten major American women poets whose collective work shows an incredible range of poetic practice. Each section of the book is devoted to a single poet and contains new poems; a brief "statement of poetics" by the poet herself in which she explores the forces -- personal, aesthetic, political -- informing her creative work; a critical essay on the poet's work; a biographical statement; and a bibliography listing works by and about the poet. Underscoring the dynamic give and take between poets and the culture at large, this anthology is indispensable for anyone interested in poetry, gender and the creative process. CONTRIBUTORS: Rae Armantrout, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Lucie Brock Broido, Jorie Graham, Barbara Guest, Lyn Hejinian, Brenda Hillman, Susan Howe, Ann Lauterbach, Harryette Mullen.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(17)
Rae Armantrout	18	(35)
Poems
As We're Told	18	(1)
The Plan	18	(2)
View	20	(1)
Up to Speed	20	(2)
Manufacturing	22	(2)
Poetic Statement
Cheshire Poetics	24	(3)
Lyricism of the Swerve
The Poetry of Rae Armantrout	27	(26)
Hank Lazer
Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge	53	(41)
Poems
From Four Year Old Girl	53	(3)
From Kali	56	(4)
From The Retired Architect	60	(1)
Poetic Statement
By Correspondence	61	(7)
A ``Sensitive Empiricism''
Berssenbrugge's Phenomenological Investigations	68	(26)
Linda Voris
Lucie Brock-Broido	94	(33)
Poems
The One Thousand Days	94	(1)
Soul Keeping Company	95	(1)
Periodic Table of Ethereal Elements	96	(2)
Am Moor	98	(1)
Carrowmore	99	(1)
Poetic Statement
Myself a Kangaroo Among the Beauties	100	(3)
``Subject, Subjugate, Inthralled''
The Selves of Lucie Brock-Broido	103	(24)
Stephen Burt
Jorie Graham	127	(51)
Poems
Exit Wound	127	(4)
Covenant	131	(3)
Prayer	134	(1)
Gulls	135	(3)
The Complex Mechanism of the Break	138	(2)
In/Silence	140	(2)
Philosopher's Stone	142	(4)
Poetic Statement
At the Border	146	(2)
Jorie Graham and Emily Dickinson
Singing to Use the Waiting	148	(30)
Thomas Gardner
Barbara Guest	178	(44)
Poems
Valorous Vine	178	(1)
If So, Tell Me	179	(1)
Confession of My Images	180	(1)
Defensive Rapture	181	(2)
An Emphasis Falls on Reality	183	(2)
The Farewell Stairway	185	(3)
Words	188	(1)
Poetic Statement
The Forces of the Imagination	189	(2)
Implacable Poet, Purple Birds
The Work of Barbara Guest	191	(31)
Sara Lundquist
Lyn Hejinian	222	(45)
Poems
From Writing Is an Aid to Memory	222	(7)
From Happily	229	(6)
Poetic Statement
Some Notes toward a Poetics	235	(7)
Parting with Description	242	(25)
Craig Dworkin
Brenda Hillman	267	(41)
Poems
A Geology	268	(8)
Poetic Statement
Twelve Writings toward a Poetics of Alchemy, Dread, Inconsistency, Betweenness, and California Geological Syntax	276	(5)
``Needing Syntax to Love''
Expressive Experimentalism in the Work of Brenda Hillman	281	(27)
Lisa Sewell
Susan Howe	308	(45)
Poems
From Chair	308	(17)
Poetic Statement
There Are Not Leaves Enough to Crown to Cover to Crown to Cover	325	(4)
Articulating the Inarticulate
Singularities and the Countermethod in Susan Howe	329	(24)
Ming-Qian Ma
Ann Lauterbach	353	(47)
Poems
In the Museum of the Word (Henri Matisse)	353	(5)
Stones (Istanbul, Robert Smithson)	358	(5)
Poetic Statement
As (It) Is: Toward a Poetics of the Whole Fragment	363	(4)
``Enlarging the Last Lexicon of Perception'' in Ann Lauterbach's Framed Fragments	367	(33)
Christine Hume
Harryette Mullen	400	(27)
Poems
Wino Rhino	400	(1)
Fancy Cortex	400	(1)
Music for Homemade Instruments	401	(1)
The Anthropic Principle	401	(1)
Sleeping with the Dictionary	402	(1)
Poetic Statement
Imagining the Unimagined Reader	403	(2)
``Sleeping with the Dictionary''
Harryette Mullen's ``Recyclopedia''	405	(22)
Elisabeth A. Frost
Contributors	427