Essays / Ariel Goldberg, Ken Chen, Wayne Koestenbaum, Tracie Morris, Anaïs Duplan, Raquel Salas Rivera, Brandon Shimoda, Cecilia Vicuña, Fred Moten ; edited by Dorothea Lasky ; afterword by Mónica de la Torre.
Place of publication from publisher's website. Includes bibliographical references.
Contents:
Introduction / Mónica de la Torre -- The poet's essay Q&A--transcription. Just captions / Ariel Goldberg -- Antiwest or the beginning / Ken Chen -- The cheerful scapegoat / Wayne Koestenbaum -- The essay, the manifesto, and the poetic imagination -- Poetry, the body, manifesto / Tracie Morris -- A poet's essay is a conversation / Anaïs Duplan -- Burning cane fields / Raquel Salas Rivera -- Contradictions, the sea, and the snow: a poem-essay as the open space -- Four short and unfinished essays (with poems) from the ruins of Japanese American incarceration / Brandon Shimoda -- The poet's essay / Cecilia Vicuña (transcript) -- recess and nonsense / Fred Moten -- What is an afterword / Mónica de la Torre -- The poet's essay Q&A--transcription.
Summary:
"Poetry as both a form and genre has many possibilities to exist within; however, poetry too often is burdened by the imperative to have an argument and a set of imagery and meanings that are preconceived and placed within the poem. In this way, poetry gets conflated with writing a thesis or project, and the poet simply the presenter of perfectly argued language. When poets attempt to bridge the gap between genres and write within the contemporary essay form, they are tasked to construct perfect arguments there as well and avoid the associative and aesthetic logic that makes poems important. The term essay itself was coined by Michel de Montaigne in the 1500s -- it comes from the French word essai, which means to test or experiment with what one knows as a learning tool, and is in partial opposition to the terms we use to discuss the essay now. Essays calls on thinkers and writers to move beyond this linear thinking into the realm of what an essay by someone like Montaigne might do. His essays do as they say they will--they test out ideas, they are unafraid to get messy in their execution, they are brave enough to go forward into the uncharted waters. In them, it's completely beside the point to get back to where they started, let alone where they'd say they would go. They are simply beside the point. It's true."-- Publisher description.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.