Material Poetics in Hemispheric America: Words and Objects 1950-2010 - Paperback

by Rebecca Kosick (Author)

This book examines poets and artists in the Americas during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries to show how they worked to make language into material objects and material objects into language.

Back Jacket

'This is an excellent and well-timed book on an important sub-tradition within hemispheric American poetries, which breaks new ground in the study of concrete and material poetries with clarity, confidence and a great deal of critical flair.' Greg Thomas, author of Border Blurs: Concrete Poetry in England and Scotland (2019) Reconsiders the lyrical norm that predominates in Anglophone accounts of poetry through a multilingual and transnational lens This book examines poets and artists in the Americas during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries to show how they worked to make language into material objects and material objects into language. It builds a theory of 'material poetics' that provides an alternative account of poetry in hemispheric America. Rebecca Kosick argues that by reframing American poetry to prominently include object-oriented practices within and beyond the United States, material poetry can be seen as representing a significant branch of the American poetic tradition. Rebecca Kosick is Senior Lecturer in Translation in the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies at the University of Bristol. Cover image: Metaesquema No. 348, Helio Oiticica, 1958, New York, Digitale 87 (1)(A) Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Gouache on board, 18 1/8 x 22 3/4' (46 x 58 cm) (c) 2020. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence Cover design: [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-7460-3 Barcode

Author Biography

Rebecca Kosick is Lecturer in Translation in the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies at the University of Bristol, where she also co-directs the Bristol Poetry Institute. She is the author of a poetry collection entitled Labor Day (Golias Books) as well as numerous articles addressing Hemispheric American poetry and art in the twentieth century and contemporary periods.