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Listening to Reading

Name: Listening to Reading
Author: Stephen Ratcliffe
ISBN: 9780791445037

by Stephen Ratcliffe

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Overview

Listening to Reading presents two different kinds of writing about poetry—"critical analysis" and "performance"—both of which pay particular attention to sound, shape, and the relation of sound/shape to meaning. It offers a critical and performative presentation of experimental writing. Less concerned with labels than with asking how this writing works, it invites us to read from earlier works by Mallarmé, Stein, and Cage to books published in the eighties and nineties by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, David Bromige, Clark Coolidge, Beverly Dahlen, Michael Davidson, Larry Eigner, Robert Grenier, Lyn Hejinian, Paul Hoover, Susan Howe, Ron Padgett, Michael Palmer, and Leslie Scalapino—writers whose work is viewed as difficult, and who have as yet been largely ignored by criticism.

Synopsis

In two dozen essays written between 1985 and 1998 published in various places, Ratcliffe (English, Mills College) looks at critical analysis and performance as different kinds of writing about poetry. He focuses on experimental writing, also known as avant garde, postmodern, innovative, and language writing. He also however suggest new readings of earlier works by Mallarmè, Stein, and Cage. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

About the Author, Stephen Ratcliffe

Stephen Ratcliffe is a poet and critic whose most recent book is REAL, a 474-page book of poems written in 474 consecutive days (Avenue B, 2007). Previous books include PORTRAITS & REPETITION (The Post-Apollo Press, 2002) and SOUND/(SYSTEM) (Green Integer, 2002). LISTENING TO READING, a collection of essays on contemporary experimental poetry, was published by SUNY Press in 2000. He is also the author of Campion: On Song (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981). He lives in Bolinas, California, and teaches at Mills College in Oakland.