A Guide to Poetics Journal: Writing in the Expanded Field, 1982-1998

An anthology of key texts in the development of contemporary poetics

Lyn Hejinian and Barrett Watten are internationally recognized poet/critics. Together they edited the highly influential Poetics Journal, whose ten issues, published between 1982 and 1998, contributed to the surge of interest in the practice of poetics. A Guide to Poetics Journal presents the major conversations and debates from the journal, and invites readers to expand on the critical and creative engagements they represent.

In making their selections for the guide, the editors have sought to showcase a range of innovative poetics and to indicate the diversity of fields and activities with which they might be engaged. The introduction and headnotes by the editors provide historical and thematic context for the articles. The Guide is intended to be of sustained creative and classroom use, while the companion Archive of all ten issues of Poetics Journal allows users to remix, remaster, and extend its practices and debates. (See http://www.upne.com/0819571236.html for more information on the digital archive.)

LYN HEJINIAN is the author of many books of poetry, essays, and translations. Among her best-known works are My Life, A Border Comedy, The Book of a Thousand Eyes, and The Language of Inquiry. She teaches at University of California, Berkeley. BARRETT WATTEN teaches at Wayne State University in Detroit. His major collections include Frame, Progress/Under Erasure, Bad History, and The Constructivist Moment: From Material Text to Cultural Poetics. Both are among the ten authors of The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography.