Low Price Guarantee
We Take School POs
Lyric Interventions: Feminism, Experimental Poetry, and Contemporary Discourse
Contributor(s): Kinnahan, Linda A. (Author)

View larger image

ISBN: 0877458731     ISBN-13: 9780877458739
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
OUR PRICE: $38.95  

Binding Type: Hardcover - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: January 2004
* Out of Print *

Annotation: Lyric Interventions explores linguistically innovative poetry by contemporary women in North America and Britain whose experiments give rise to fresh feminist readings of the lyric subject. The works discussed by Linda Kinnahan explore the lyric subject in relation to the social: an "I" as a product of social discourse and as a conduit for change. Contributing to discussions of language-oriented poetries through its focus on women writers and feminist perspectives, this study of lyric experimentation brings attention to the cultural contexts of nation, gender, and race as they significantly shift the terms by which the "experimental" is produced, defined, and understood. Kinnahan focuses upon lyric intervention in distinct but related spheres as they link public and ideological norms of identity. First, lyric innovations with visual and spatial realms of cultural practice and meaning, particularly as they naturalize ideologies of gender and race in North America and the postcolonial legacies of the Caribbean, are investigated in the works of Barbara Guest, Kathleen Fraser, Erica Hunt, and M. Nourbese Philip. Second, experimental engagements with nationalist rhetorics of identity, marking the works of Carol Ann Duffy, Denise Riley, Wendy Mulford, and Geraldine Monk, are explored in relation to contemporary evocations of "self" in Britain. And third, in discussions of all the poets, but particularly accentuated in regard to Guest, Fraser, Riley, Mulford, and Monk, formal experimentation with the lyric "I" is considered through gendered encounters with critical and avant-garde discourses of poetics. Throughout the study, Kinnahan seeks to illuminate and challenge the ways in which visualand verbal constructs function to make "readable" the subjectivities historically supporting white, male-centered power within the worlds of art, poetry, social locations, or national policy. The potential of the feminist, innovative lyric to generate linguistic surprise simultaneously with engaging risky strategies of social intervention lends force and significance to the public engagement of such poetic experimentation. This fresh, energetic study will be of great interest to literary critics and women's studies scholars, as well as poets on both sides of the Atlantic.
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | Poetry
- Literary Criticism | Feminist
Dewey: 811.540
LCCN: 2003054892
Physical Information: 0.99" H x 6.14" W x 9.44" L (1.18 lbs) 280 pages
Themes:
- Sex & Gender - Feminine
Features: Bibliography, Index
Review Citations: Choice 06/01/2004 pg. 1881
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

Lyric Interventions explores linguistically innovative poetry by contemporary women in North America and Britain whose experiments give rise to fresh feminist readings of the lyric subject. The works discussed by Linda Kinnahan explore the lyric subject in relation to the social: an "I" as a product of social discourse and as a conduit for change.

Contributing to discussions of language-oriented poetries through its focus on women writers and feminist perspectives, this study of lyric experimentation brings attention to the cultural contexts of nation, gender, and race as they significantly shift the terms by which the "experimental" is produced, defined, and understood.

This study focuses upon lyric intervention in distinct but related spheres as they link public and ideological norms of identity. Firstly, lyric innovations with visual and spatial realms of cultural practice and meaning, particularly as they naturalize ideologies of gender and race in North America and the post-colonial legacies of the Caribbean, are investigated in the works of Barbara Guest, Kathleen Fraser, Erica Hunt, and M. Nourbese Philip. Secondly, experimental engagements with nationalist rhetorics of identity, marking the works of Carol Ann Duffy, Denise Riley, Wendy Mulford, and Geraldine Monk, are explored in relation to contemporary evocations of "self" in Britain. And thirdly, in discussions of all of the poets, but particularly accenuated in regard to Guest, Fraser, Riley, Mulford, and Monk, formal experimentation with the lyric "I" is considered through gendered encounters with critical and avant-garde discourses of poetics.

Throughout the study, Kinnahan seeks to illuminate and challenge the ways in which visual and verbal constructs function to make "readable" the subjectivities historically supporting white, male-centered power within the worlds of art, poetry, social locations, or national policy. The potential of the feminist, innovative lyric to generate linguistic surprise simultaneously with engaging risky strategies of social intervention lends force and significance to the public engagement of such poetic experimentation.

This fresh, energetic study will be of great interest to literary critics and womens studies scholars, as well as poets on both sides of the Atlantic.

 
Customer ReviewsSubmit your own review
 
To tell a friend about this book, you must Sign In First!