Overview
- Offers ground-breaking readings of the significance of musical notation in several contemporary American long poems
- Introduces provocative new readings of a range of North American authors both modern and contemporary, including Langston Hughes, Joan Retallack, Armand Schwerner, BpNichol, and Anne Waldman
- Forges connections between the formal/aesthetic use of scores in contemporary poetics and a range of cultural, political and ethical questions
Part of the book series: Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics (MPCC)
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
Table of contents (5 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book is a critical experiment that tracks the literary and poetic uses of musical notation and notational methods in North American long poems from the middle of last century to the contemporary moment. Poets have readily referred to their poems as “scores.” Yet, in this study, Carruthers argues that the integration of musical scores in expansive works of this period does more work than previously thought, offering both resolution and escape from the demands placed on long poem form. The five case studies, on Langston Hughes, Armand Schwerner, BpNichol, Joan Retallack and Anne Waldman, offer approaches to reading literary scores in what might be described as a critical stave or a critical “fugue” of instances. In differing ways, musical notation and notational methods impact the form, time and sometimes the ethical and political stances of these respective long poems.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
A.J. Carruthers is an Australian-born experimental poet and critic. He is author of AXIS Book 1: Areal, the first volume in a lifelong long poem. He teaches literature and creative writing in Shanghai, and holds editorial posts at Southerly, Rabbit Poetry Review and SOd press.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Notational Experiments in North American Long Poems, 1961-2011
Book Subtitle: Stave Sightings
Authors: A. J. Carruthers
Series Title: Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46242-4
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-46241-7Published: 07 February 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-83476-4Published: 17 July 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-46242-4Published: 28 January 2017
Series ISSN: 2634-6052
Series E-ISSN: 2634-6060
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXXV, 206
Number of Illustrations: 9 b/w illustrations, 4 illustrations in colour
Topics: Poetry and Poetics, Twentieth-Century Literature, North American Literature