Lang Abigail - MODERNIST LEGACIES

Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics

Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics promotes and pursues topics in the burgeoning field of twentieth- and twenty-first-century poetics. Critical and scholarly work on poetry and poetics of interest to the series includes social location in its relationships to subjectivity, to the construction of authorship, to uvres, and to careers; poetic reception and dissemination (groups, movements, formations, institutions); the intersection of poetry and theory; questions about language, poetic authority, and the goals of writing; claims in poetics, impacts of social life, and the dynamics of the poetic career as these are staged and debated by poets and inside poems. Topics that are bibliographic, pedagogic, that concern the social field of poetry, and reflect on the history of poetry studies are valued as well. This series focuses both on individual poets and texts and on larger movements, poetic institutions, and questions about poetic authority, social identifications, and aesthetics.

Language and the Renewal of Society in Walt Whitman, Laura (Riding) Jackson, and Charles Olson

The American Cratylus

Carla Billitteri

Modernism and Poetic Inspiration

The Shadow Mouth

Jed Rasula

The Social Life of Poetry

Appalachia, Race, and Radical Modernism

Chris Green

Procedural Form in Postmodern American Poetry

Berrigan, Antin, Silliman, and Hejinian

David W. Huntsperger

Modernist Writings and Religio-scientific Discourse

H.D., Loy, and Toomer

Lara Vetter

Male Subjectivity and Poetic Form in New American Poetry

Andrew Mossin

The Poetry of Susan Howe

History, Theology, Authority

Will Montgomery

Ronald Johnsons Modernist Collage Poetry

Ross Hair

Pastoral, Pragmatism, and Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Ann Marie Mikkelsen

(Re:)Working the Ground

Essays on the Late Writings of Robert Duncan

edited by James Maynard

Womens Poetry and Popular Culture

Marsha Bryant

Poetry After the Invention of Amrica

Dont Light the Flower

Andrs Ajens, translated by Michelle Gil-Montero, introduction by Erin Moure and Forrest Gander

New York School Collaborations

The Color of Vowels

edited by Mark Silverberg

The Poetics of the American Suburbs

Jo Gill

The Afro-Modernist Epic and Literary History

Tolson, Hughes, Baraka

Kathy Lou Schultz

Delmore Schwartz

A Critical Reassessment

Alex Runchman

The Poetics of Waste

Queer Excess in Stein, Ashbery, Schuyler, and Goldsmith

Christopher Schmidt

US Poetry in the Age of Empire, 19792012

Piotr K. Gwiazda

Global Anglophone Poetry

Literary Form and Social Critique in Walcott, Muldoon, de Kok, and Nagra

Omaar Hena

Modernist Legacies

Trends and Faultlines in British Poetry Today

Edited by Abigail Lang and David Nowell Smith

Modernist Legacies

Trends and Faultlines in British Poetry Today

Edited by

Abigail Lang and David Nowell Smith

MODERNIST LEGACIES

Copyright Abigail Lang and David Nowell Smith, 2015.

All rights reserved.

First published in 2015 by

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

in the United Statesa division of St. Martins Press LLC,

175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.

Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.

Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

ISBN: 9781137512239

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Modernist legacies : trends and faultlines in British poetry today / edited by Abigail Lang and David Nowell Smith.

pages cm.(Modern and contemporary poetry and poetics)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 9781137512239 (hardback : alk. paper)

1. English poetry21st centuryHistory and criticism. 2. Modernism (Literature)Influence. I. Lang, Abigail, editor. II. Nowell Smith, David, editor.

PR612.M63 2015

821.9209dc23 2015009182

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.

First edition: September 2015

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

David Nowell Smith and Abigail Lang

Figures

Acknowledgments

Like so many collections of essays, the current volume has its beginnings in a conference titled Legacies of Modernism: The State of British Poetry Today, which took place at the Universit Paris-Diderot, Institut Charles V, June 911, 2011. We would like to thank the many participants at that conference, particularly our fellow members of the steering committee, Robert Hampson, Ian Patterson, and Paul Volsik. The conference was made possible by the funds supplied by LARCA (Laboratoire de Recherches sur les Cultures AnglophonesUMR 8225) and BQR (Bonus Qualit Recherche) at Paris-Diderot, with the collaboration of Double Change.

Given that the work of all the poets discussed in the following pages is under copyright, we would not have been able to put this volume together without the cooperation of the poets themselves, their publishers, and their estates. Our thanks are due therefore to the following people: Caroline Bergvall, cris cheek, Jean Crozier on behalf of the Estate of Andrew Crozier, Ken Edwards and Reality Street, Raymond Foye on behalf of the Estate of John Wieners, Ulli Freer, John Hall, Chris and Jennifer Hamilton-Emery and Salt Publishing, Jacket Magazine and Keston Sutherland, John James, Pierre Joris, Paul MacSweeney on behalf of the Estate of Barry MacSweeney, Wendy Mulford, Alice Notley on behalf of the Estate of Douglas Oliver, John Seed, and Melissa Watterworth Batt on behalf of the Estate of Charles Olson.

Finally, we would like to thank those readers and interlocutors whose input has made this a far better book than it otherwise would have been. In compiling the list of 99 poets, we are grateful for the advice, criticism, and recommendations of Jennifer Cooke, Robert Hampson, Edmund Hardy, and Ian Patterson. Each of the essays benefitted from the meticulous and generous reading of Rachel Blau duPlessis and the anonymous reviewers at Palgrave, and Ryan Jenkins made the production process, surprisingly, gratifyingly painless. It is to Rachel, for her commitment to the project throughout its development, that we owe our major debt of gratitude.