Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments (Classic Reprint)

Anne Knish, Emanuel Morgan

ISBN 10: 1331792363 / ISBN 13: 9781331792369

Published by Forgotten Books, 2022

About this Item

Print on Demand. This book is an ambitious compilation of poetic experiments offering a fresh approach to expressions and is the first of its kind. It is a testament to the artistic endeavors of the 'Spectric' group, a collection of experimental poets pushing the possibilities of poetic expression through the 'Spectric' technique. The Spectric method draws inspiration from various notions: the dispersion of light into a spectrum of colors, after-images that linger in the eye, and the ghostly presence that haunts objects in reality. Through these three interconnected meanings, the poets aim to capture the essence of objects, giving a new vibrancy to familiar themes. The poems in this book are a testament to the depth and breadth of the Spectric method, exploring a range of emotions and ideas, from the playful to the profound, and challenge readers to engage with poetry in a new and immersive way. This book is a reproduction of an important historical work, digitally reconstructed using state-of-the-art technology to preserve the original format. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in the book.

Seller Inventory # 9781331792369_0

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments (Classic Reprint)
• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Publication Date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1331792363
• ISBN 13: 9781331792369
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Book Type: print-on-demand item
• Seller catalogs:
  • Poetry

About this title

Synopsis

Explore a museum of color and sound for the mind’s eye.

This volume gathers bold, experimental poetry that blends vision, memory, and myth into a single, influential approach called the Spectric method. Read to feel how images and emotions rearrange themselves into new brightness on the page.

Within these pages, the poets push language beyond ordinary verse, inviting you to experience sights, sounds, and moods as if they were alive in your own thoughts. The collection juxtaposes free verse with rhythmic form to spark fresh associations and a vivid inner landscape.

• Experience poems that fuse color, light, and memory into striking, kinetic images.
• See how recurring motifs imagine a poet’s vision as both reflection and projection.
• Explore a dialogue between traditional forms and free expression across multiple voices.
• Encounter an experimental method described through prose and poetry alike, offering a new lens for reading verse.

Ideal for readers of modern poetry who enjoy inventive phrasing and bold imagery.

About the Author

Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments was a small volume of poetry published in 1916 by American writers Witter Bynner (1881-1968), who wrote under the pseudonym "Emanuel Morgan", and Arthur Davison Ficke (1883-1945), who wrote as "Anne Knish. " Spectra was preceded by a brief manifesto outlining the methods of "Spectrism" as a school. With this vague program, the two poets adopted personas for their namesakes. The poems in the collection were not given titles, merely opus numbers. "Emanuel Morgan" was a rhyming Whitman, full of bacchanalian, bardic blatherskite. "Anne Knish" was the archetypal poetess, full of oracular ipse dixits, sensual, enigmatic, and vaguely scandalous. In 1916, most Americans were unfamiliar with Eastern European cooking and had never heard of knishes; the pseudonym was intended to be exotic and slightly oriental. Spectra was meant to be the starting point of a hoax of exposure, after the manner of the Taxil hoax or, more recently, the Sokal Affair. They meant the Spectra poems to mock the pretensions of these several schools, and endeavored to make them deliberately bad.