Thinking its presence: form, race, and subjectivity in contemporary Asian American poetry.

Wang, Dorothy J.

Published by Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2014

About this Item

like new hardcover, printed covers. WANG, DOROTHY J. Thinking its presence: form, race, and subjectivity in contemporary Asian American poetry. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2014, xvii, 391pp., . Series: Asian America. - When will American poetry and poetics stop viewing poetry by racialized persons as a secondary subject within the field? Dorothy J. Wang makes an impassioned case that now is the time. Thinking Its Presence calls for a radical rethinking of how American poetry is being read today, offering its own reading as a roadmap. While focusing on the work of five contemporary Asian American poets{u2014}Li-Young Lee, Marilyn Chin, John Yau, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and Pamela Lu{u2014}the book contends that aesthetic forms are inseparable from social, political, and historical contexts in the writing and reception of all poetry. Wang questions the tendency of critics and academics alike to occlude the role of race in their discussions of the American poetic tradition and casts a harsh light on the double standard they apply in reading poems by poets who are racial minorities. This is the first sustained study of the formal properties in Asian American poetry across a range of aesthetic styles, from traditional lyric to avant-garde. Wang argues with conviction that critics should read minority poetry with the same attention to language and form that they bring to their analyses of writing by white poets. - CONTENTS: Introduction : aesthetics contra "identity" in contemporary poetry studies -- Metaphor, desire and assimilation in the poetry of Li-Young Lee -- Reading too much into : Marilyn Chin, translation, and Asian American poetry in the "post-race" era -- Irony's barbarian voices in the poetry of Marilyn Chin -- Undercover Asian : John Yau, parody, and the politics of ethnic identification and self-identification -- Genghis Chan : parodying private eye -- Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge's poetics of contingency and relationality -- Subjunctive subjects : Pamela Lu's Pamela : a novel and the poetics and politics of diaspora -- Epilogue : American poetry and poetry criticism in the twenty-first century? ISBN 9780804783651.

Seller Inventory # 92953

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Thinking its presence: form, race, and subjectivity in contemporary Asian American poetry.
• Publisher: Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2014
• Binding: Hardcover