Lucy Alford - Forms of Poetic Attention

1. Ponge : Heaney : Stevens : Bishop : Mullen
2. Dickinson : Shakespeare : Lorde : Lowell : Oppen : Hass
3. Al-Khans : Hill : Celan : Cha : Carson
4. Coleridge : Wordsworth : Rilke : Burnside
5. Hlderlin : Mallarm
6. Rimbaud : Wright
7. OHara : Ammons : Retallack
8. Bukowski : Gunn : Eliot

A far-reaching community of scholars, poets, friends, and family has given generously to this book and to my writing life over many years. Indeed, so many minds and hands have shared in the conception, composition, and editing of this book, it has truly become an object of sustained co-attending and copoiesis in itself.

Stanford Universitys Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages provided a dynamic and supportive environment in which to write the first version of this book. First and foremost, I am indebted to Roland Greene for his wisdom and mentorship, brilliant feedback, and clarity of mind at every stage over many years. His thinking is present in every word of this book. As adviser and friend, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht has both encouraged and modeled true intellectual independence; his thinking, particularly on the concepts of historical latency and Stimmung (mood, atmosphere), has been a deep source of inspiration to me. The first draft of my reading of Charles Wright in emerged as a paper for Gumbrechts graduate seminar on Stimmung. Joshua Landy has been a keen reader and a vital interlocutor on literatures formative capacities. Amir Eshel urged me to write the book I would like to read. This advice has stayed with me, and Ive done my best to follow it. David Palumbo-Liu has been a steadfast advocate and friend in countless ways, both to me and to this book. Special thanks to Lanier Anderson, Khalil Barhoum, Karl Heinz Bohrer, John Felstiner, Kenneth Fields, Marisa Galvez, Alexander Key, Patricia Parker, Nancy Ruttenburg, Ramzi Salti, Vered Shemtov, and, at Berkeley, Muhammad Siddiq. The Workshop in Poetics, led by Roland Greene and Nicholas Jenkins, offered an ongoing, anchoring community of poetic thinkers across periods, languages, and methodologies.

My colleagues and friends in Chicago have been heroic readers and interlocutors; our conversations brought clarity, precision, and depth to some very rough and drafty terrain. My fellow Fellows in the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts have offered rich interdisciplinary perspectives, both in conversation and workshop settings. Special thanks to Deborah Neibel for making everything happen. Mark Payne provided detailed feedback on the entire book, and I have returned again and again to his insightful commentary. Rosanna Warren has been a brilliant and generous mentor and friend on matters critical and creative. Epic conversations on the lyric with Christopher Davis at Northwestern have made my work and my life better. Special thanks to Marcello Barison, Alexis Becker, Aaron Benanav, Joshua Craze, Fred Donner, David Egan, Maud Ellmann, Rachel Galvin, Florian Klinger, Pablo Maurette, Franoise Meltzer, Benjamin Morgan, Sarah Nooter, Srikanth (Chicu) Reddy, Steven Rings, Naama Rokem, Lisa Ruddick, Michael Rutherglen, Eric Santner, Richard Strier, Christopher Taylor, Anna Elena Torres, Aaron Tugendhaft, Christopher Wild, and John Wilkinson. The Poetry and Poetics Workshop, the Comparative Literature Colloquium, and the Workshop of the Society of Fellows contributed an abundance of constructive feedback on my work in progress.

Christopher Fynsk, Adrienne Janus, and Nick Nesbitt at the University of Aberdeens Centre for Modern Thought oversaw the research that gave rise to this project. At the University of Virginia, Jahan Ramazani, Michael Smith, Lisa Russ Spaar, and Charles Wright have been my philosophical and poetic lighthouses. At Bard College, Thomas Keenan and Joan Retallack offered early and lasting inspiration and encouragement. Heartfelt thanks to Nura Yingling, Wendy Gavin, and Virginia Masterson, my first guides into poetry.

I am sincerely grateful for the work of my editor, Philip Leventhal: for his patience and clarity, his enthusiasm for this project from our first conversation, and his willingness to invest in an unconventional first book. The anonymous readers of my manuscript helped to guide my revision process and clarify blurry patches in my own thinking. Many thanks to Columbia University Press for bringing this book into the world, especially Susan Pensak, my production editor, and Monique Briones, editorial assistant, for their attentive behind-the-scenes work on this project, and Chang Jae Lee for his beautiful cover design.

My research has been made possible by a number of institutions and awards, many of which also provided a roof over my head and an intellectual community. Many thanks to the American Comparative Literature Association for selecting this book for the Helen Tartar First Book Subvention Award. At the University of Chicago, my work has been supported by the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts, the Bernard Weissbourd Memorial Fund, the College, and the Departments of English and Comparative Literature. Many thanks to the Ric Weiland Graduate Fellowship for two years of interdisciplinary community and financial support and to Theodore and Frances Geballe and the Stanford Humanities Center for the unforgettable year of writing and fellowship granted by the Geballe Dissertation Prize. This book also benefited from research opportunities provided by Amir Eshel, Brian Johnsrud, and the Poetic Media Lab at Stanfords Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis; the UVA-Yarmouk University Summer Arabic Program in Jordan; the Schlegelschule and the Dahlem Center for the Humanities at the Freie Universitt Berlin; and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach.