Poetry Unbound (Paperback)

Mike Chasar

ISBN 10: 0231188951 / ISBN 13: 9780231188951

Published by Columbia University Press, New York, 2020

About this Item

Paperback. It's become commonplace in contemporary culture for critics to proclaim the death of poetry. Poetry, they say, is no longer relevant to the modern world, mortally wounded by the emergence of new media technologies. In Poetry Unbound, Mike Chasar rebuts claims that poetry has become a marginal art form, exploring how it has played a vibrant and culturally significant role by adapting to and shaping new media technologies in complex, unexpected, and powerful ways.Beginning with the magic lantern and continuing through the dominance of the internet, Chasar follows poetry's travels off the page into new media formats, including silent film, sound film, and television. Mass and nonprint media have not stolen poetry's audience, he contends, but have instead given people even more ways to experience poetry. Examining the use of canonical as well as religious and popular verse forms in a variety of genres, Chasar also traces how poetry has helped negotiate and legitimize the cultural status of emergent media. Ranging from Citizen Kane to Leave It to Beaver to best-selling Instapoet Rupi Kaur, this book reveals poetry's ability to find new audiences and meanings in media forms with which it has often been thought to be incompatible. Illuminating poetry's surprising multimedia history, Poetry Unbound offers a new paradigm for understanding poetry's still evolving place in American culture. Mike Chasar rebuts claims that poetry has become a marginal art form, exploring how it has played a vibrant and culturally significant role by adapting to and shaping new media technologies. Beginning with the magic lantern and continuing through the dominance of the internet, he follows poetrys travels off the page into new media formats. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780231188951

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Poetry Unbound (Paperback)
• Publisher: Columbia University Press, New York
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231188951
• ISBN 13: 9780231188951
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

It’s become commonplace in contemporary culture for critics to proclaim the death of poetry. Poetry, they say, is no longer relevant to the modern world, mortally wounded by the emergence of new media technologies. In Poetry Unbound, Mike Chasar rebuts claims that poetry has become a marginal art form, exploring how it has played a vibrant and culturally significant role by adapting to and shaping new media technologies in complex, unexpected, and powerful ways.

Beginning with the magic lantern and continuing through the dominance of the internet, Chasar follows poetry’s travels off the page into new media formats, including silent film, sound film, and television. Mass and nonprint media have not stolen poetry’s audience, he contends, but have instead given people even more ways to experience poetry. Examining the use of canonical as well as religious and popular verse forms in a variety of genres, Chasar also traces how poetry has helped negotiate and legitimize the cultural status of emergent media. Ranging from Citizen Kane to Leave It to Beaver to best-selling Instapoet Rupi Kaur, this book reveals poetry’s ability to find new audiences and meanings in media forms with which it has often been thought to be incompatible. Illuminating poetry’s surprising multimedia history, Poetry Unbound offers a new paradigm for understanding poetry’s still evolving place in American culture.

About the Author

Mike Chasar is associate professor of English at Willamette University. He is the author of Everyday Reading: Poetry and Popular Culture in Modern America (Columbia, 2012) and the coeditor of Poetry After Cultural Studies (2011).