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McCaffery and Rasula have put together a touchstone for poets who are seeking the imaginative and who have interests in the materiality of language. It's from the materials they have assembled here that the next poetic wave (school, pedantically) will arise, post post-language, post postmodern, etc. There is a growing body of criticism (e.g. Drucker, Davidson, Perloff, Bernstein) heralding the next step, the material step, and it is through what they have placed in the hands of poets that this wave will be realized. | |
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As the book is inclusive (to the tune of over 600 pages) more than exclusive, and directed more to poets more than critics, teachers, and students, it is not part of the recent anthology wars. This book transcends those wars. In many ways these other anthologies have served to exclude. This book, this mammoth anthology, or - depending on how you slice it, five big anthologies - brings to our attention the vast resources available. | |
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As can be seen from the above, the materials lead to each other as pieces or as whole parts. Dichotomies, statements, and arguments are not resolved but rather left for the reader to explore. This intertextuality of the book and the focus on the process of interacting with the reader gives the book as a whole the character of a long and involved poem. | |
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Imagining Language: An Anthology, Edited by Jed Rasula and Steve McCaffery. Cambridge, MA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1998. xx+618 pp. ISBN: 026218186X. USD$50 | |
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