Phenomenology and the Late Twentieth-Century American Long Poem

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Coming to Terms with the American Long Poem: Introduction

   • Matthew Carbery

   Pages 1-35

3. Finding a Word for Ourselves: George Oppen’s Of Being Numerous

   • Matthew Carbery

   Pages 37-63

4. A Huge Companionship: Robin Blaser’s ‘Image-Nation’

   • Matthew Carbery

   Pages 65-93

5. A Grand Essay on Perception: Lyn Hejinian and Leslie Scalapino’s Sight

   • Matthew Carbery

   Pages 95-124

6. A Massive System of Urgency: Susan Howe’s Pierce-Arrow

   • Matthew Carbery

   Pages 125-155

7. Adumbration Bound Our Book: Nathaniel Mackey’s ‘Song of the Andoumboulou’

   • Matthew Carbery

   Pages 157-191

8. The Book Withdraws into Itself: Rachel Blau DuPlessis’ Drafts

   • Matthew Carbery

   Pages 193-223

9. An Ever-Renewed Experience of Its Own Beginning: Conclusion

   • Matthew Carbery

   Pages 225-230

10. Back Matter

    Pages 231-235

    PDF

Phenomenology and the Late Twentieth-Century American Long Poem reads major figures including Charles Olson, Lyn Hejinian, Nathaniel Mackey, Susan Howe and Rachel Blau DuPlessis within a new approach to the long poem tradition. Through a series of contextualised close readings, it explores the ways in which American poets developed their poetic forms by engaging with a variety of European phenomenologists, including Hannah Arendt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. Consolidating recent materials on the role of Continental Philosophy in American poetics, this book explores the theoretical and historical contexts in which avant-garde poets have developed radically new methods of making poems long. Matthew Carbery offers a timely commentary on a number of major works of American poetry whilst providing ground-breaking research into the wider philosophical context of late twentieth-century poetic experimentation.

• American long form poem
• avant-garde poetry
• experimental poetry
• philosophy and poetry
• Susan Howe
• Rachel Blau DuPlessis
• Charles Olson
• Merleau-Ponty
• Derrida
• Continental Philosophy

“The modern long poem, in its sheer formal diversity, remains somewhat impervious to generic analysis. Thankfully we can now turn to Matthew Carbery’s book, which provides tools for understanding what makes the (especially American, avant-garde) long poem long. Carbery’s focus on ‘extension,’ and his insightful analysis of the poetic inquiry into perception of subjectivity, provide a unique and flexible means of containing the real diversity of long poem forms.” (Stephen Collis, Professor of English, Simon Fraser University, Canada)

• Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK

  Matthew Carbery

Matthew Carbery is an Early Career Researcher currently living in Cambridge, UK. He is also an editor of EPIZOOTICS! literary magazine, and his poetry has been published in Tears in the Fence, Blackbox Manifold, CTRL+ALT+DEL, Otoliths, Stride and Dead King Magazine.

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