The author of four well-received books of poetry, and a MacArthur
winner, Fulton (English/Univ. of Michigan) collects ten of her
fugitive essays on poetry, all of which have been previously
published in literary magazines and anthologies. Very much a poet's
miscellany, Fulton's uneven volume tells us more about her own
poetic aesthetic than it does about any of the poets she discusses.
At her best when chatty, Fulton at her worst writes with all the
subtlety and smoothness of a mediocre graduate student, using
jargon she doesn't seem to understand and quotations that seem
simply off-the-wall (this, for instance, from physicist N. David
Mermin: "We now know that the moon is demonstrably not there when
nobody looks"). The most valuable essays pertain directly to
Fulton's own singular style as a poet: In two essays from the
1980s, she develops a vague notion of"fractal verse" that accounts
for her deliberate quirkiness and her sense of "manageable chaos."
Two essays celebrate her female fractal forebears: the 17th-century
eccentric Margaret Cavendish (in an essay most notable for its
bizarre personal introduction); and the "alien invader," Emily
Dickinson, who, as Fulton's greatest influence, rightly remains a
touchstone throughout the volume. A handful of omnibus reviews
grumble a retro-feminism that doesn't prevent her from trashing Amy
Clampitt and praising A.R. Ammons - another "fractalist," in
Fulton's view. In a courageous essay explicating some of her own
work, and in an update on her fractalist prescriptions, Fulton
further defines her aesthetic as a search for the "maximalist
sublime" in "moments of odd, postmodern rapture." Despite some
confused political asides, and a foundational idea based on a rough
analogy to science, this collection provides an illuminating gloss
to Fulton's distinctive verse. (Kirkus Reviews)
In "Feeling as a Foreign Language," award-winning poet and critic
Alice Fulton considers poetry's uncanny ability to access and
recreate emotions so wayward they go unnamed. How does poetry
create feeling? What are fractal poetics?
In a series of provocative, beautifully written essays concerning
"the good strangeness of poetry," Fulton contemplates the
intricacies of a rare genetic syndrome, the aesthetics of
complexity theory, and the need for "cultural incorrectness." She
also meditates on electronic, biological, and linguistic screens;
falls in love with an outrageous 17th-century poet; argues for a
Dickinsonian tradition in American letters; and calls for a
courageous poetics of "inconvenient knowledge."
Contents
Preamble
I. Process
"Head Notes, Heart Notes, Base Notes"
Screens: An Alchemical Scrapbook
II. Poetics
"Subversive Pleasures"
Of Formal, Free, and Fractal Verse: Singing the Body Eclectic
Fractal Amplifications: Writing in Three Dimensions
III. Powers
"The Only Kangaroo among the Beauty"
Unordinary Passions: Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle
Her Moment of Brocade: The Reconstruction of Emily Dickinson
IV. Praxis
"Seed Ink"
To Organize a Waterfall
V. Penchants
"A Canon for Infidels"
Three Poets in Pursuit of America
The State of the Art
Main Things
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VI. Premises
"The Tongue as a Muscle"
A Poetry of Inconvenient Knowledge
General
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