Multiformalisms: Postmodern Poetics of Form, Edited by Annie Finch and Susan M. Schultz

This collection explores new directions in poetic form and theory. The “multi” in “multiformalisms” is nothing if not multifarious. This collection of essays by important poets and critics investigates traditional and exploratory forms, as well as the ways cultures and histories have come to shape them. Multiformalisms juxtaposes essays on traditional formalism and flarf; the American long poem and native Hawaiian poetry; rhyme in Paul Muldoon and textual variability in New Media poetry; Susan Howe and Lucinda Roy, jazz and Asian American poetics, and more. Scholars and students of poetry, prosody, and culture will find this a necessary and lively reference to contemporary currents in their fields.

Table of Contents

1. FORMALISTA!: Rhyming on the Left Margin / Michael Magee and K. Silem Mohammad
2. Form and Spirit: An Interview with Sonia Sanchez / Annie Finch
3. Copying / Rachel Blau DuPlessis
4. “What Remains”: Race, Poetry, and John Yau’s “I” / Juliana Chang
5. “As to Violin Music”: Time in the Longpoem / Ron Silliman
6. He Lei Ho‘oheno no n? Kau a Kau: Language, Performance and Form in Hawaiian Poetry / ku‘ualoha ho‘omanawanui
7. Skirmishes on the Border: The Evolution and Function of Paul Muldoon’s Fuzzy Rhyme / Andrew Osborn
8. The Ambidexterity of Lucinda Roy / Stephen Cushman
9. Representing AIDS: Thom Gunn and the Modalities of Verse / Tyler B. Hoffman
10. A Conversation with Marilyn Hacker / Annie Finch
11. Seeing Reading: Susan Howe’s Moving Margins / Cole Swensen
12. Jazz Prosodies: Orality and Textuality / Meta DuEwa Jones
13. The Semiotics of Subversion: Plath’s “Daddy” and the Dynamics of Form / Irena Praitis
14. Textual Variability in New Media Poetry / Hazel Smith
15. Notes on Form as Portal to Permeable Boundaries / Hank Lazer
16. Poetic Form: It’s What’s for Dinner / Anne Tardos

ISBN-13: 978-1934999363, 540 pages, $25.00

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