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