Voicing American Poetry: Sound and Performance from the 1920s to the Present - Softcover

Wheeler, Lesley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801474426 ISBN 13: 9780801474422

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2008

Synopsis

The most interesting tensions and ambitions of twentieth-century American poetry intersect in one resonant word: voice. The term "poetic voice" emphasizes poetry's reliance on sound, which is prominent in ethnic American writings, new formalism, and many species of performance and sound-directed poetry, both mainstream and avant-garde. However, voice is also a metaphor for originality, personality, and the illusion of authorial presence within printed poetry―meanings that have been particularly useful (and provocative) in literary criticism and creative writing.

In Voicing American Poetry, Lesley Wheeler explores how and why American poetry of the twentieth century and beyond keeps returning to voice as an idea, even though the term frustrates definition. Poetic voice is a crucial term precisely because of its ambiguity: both poets and critics invoke voice to argue for poetry's power. Because voice can also be a medium for poetry, this book offers a uniquely full history of twentieth- and twenty-first-century poetry performance in the United States. Beginning with Edna St. Vincent Millay's captivating performances of presence on the page, the stage, and the radio, Wheeler investigates the rise of the academic poetry reading circuit and its various lively alternatives, from the Beats to the poetry-slam scene.

Along the way Wheeler examines how Langston Hughes transformed oral culture into visual poetry, and how collaborative poetry challenges the very idea of self-expression. Voicing American Poetry also features an annotated list of important poetry readings in the United States since 1950. Wheeler finds that American poetry itself remains a vital, coherent enterprise and that this commitment is constantly renewed in lecture halls, auditoriums, coffee shops, bars, and classrooms.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"In Voicing American Poetry, Lesley Wheeler analyzes various manifestations of and developments in 'voice': the impact of technology on the performance of poetry, the conversion of soundscapes into text, spiritualist channeling, collaboration, and various modes of performance. Wheeler's book is a bold and original work of poetics. Its readability will ensure broad appeal, and its significant new thinking will catalyze lively debate. Its methods (including participant observation) are fresh and exciting, and the sharp intelligence that drives the argument in Voicing American Poetry will surely change our thinking about poetry and voice for years to come."--Cynthia Hogue, Professor and Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Arizona State University, author of The Incognito Body

"Voicing American Poetry performs an important intervention in the poetry wars that continue to consume energy and ink and it will also serve very valuable pedagogical purposes inside and outside the classroom. This is a kind of aesthetic peace making through close textual reading and cultural and performance studies. Wheeler's large mind and imagination are capable of seeing beyond simple oppositions to appreciate and to understand many different kinds of writing and poetry performance from various times and locations."--Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Pennsylvania State University, author of Striptease

About the Author

Lesley Wheeler is Professor and Department Head of English at Washington and Lee University. She is the author of The Poetics of Enclosure: American Women Poets from Dickinson to Dove and Scholarship Girl (poems).

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0801474426
• ISBN 13: 9780801474422
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248