Contested Records: The Turn to Documents in Contemporary North American Poetry (Contemp North American Poetry)

Why have so many contemporary poets turned to source material, from newspapers to governmental records, as inspiration for their poetry? How can citational poems offer a means of social engagement? Contested Records analyzes how some of the most well-known twenty-first century North American poets work with fraught documents. Whether it’s the legal paperwork detailing the murder of 132 African captives, state transcriptions of the last words of death row inmates, or testimony from miners and rescue workers about a fatal mine disaster, author Michael Leong reveals that much of the power of contemporary poetry rests in its potential to select, adapt, evaluate, and extend public documentation. Examining the use of documents in the works of Kenneth Goldsmith, Vanessa Place, Amiri Baraka, Claudia Rankine, M. NourbeSe Philip, and others, Leong reveals how official records can evoke a wide range of emotions—from hatred to veneration, from indifference to empathy, from desire to disgust. He looks at techniques such as collage, plagiarism, re-reporting, and textual outsourcing, and evaluates some of the most loved—and reviled—contemporary North American poems. Ultimately, Leong finds that if bureaucracy and documentation have the power to police and traumatize through the exercise of state power, then so, too, can document-based poetry function as an unofficial, counterhegemonic, and popular practice that authenticates marginalized experiences at the fringes of our cultural memory. "Why have so many contemporary poets turned to source material, from newspapers to governmental records, as inspiration for their poetry? How can citational poems offer a means of social engagement? What are the advantages and perils of appropriating text? Synthesizing research in cultural memory studies, art history, public sphere theory, and the history of the humanities, Michael Leong answers such questions as he argues that poems driven by the remixing and reframing of found texts powerfully engage with the collective ways we remember, forget, and remember again. Going well beyond Wordsworthian recollections in tranquility, authors of such research-driven and mnemotechnic work use previous inscriptions as a springboard into public intellectualism This is the first book-length study to examine conceptual writing and documentary poetry under the same cover, showing how diverse writers associated with different poetry communities have a common interest in documentation. Putting into provocative conversation writers such as Amiri Baraka, Kenneth Goldsmith, R.B. Kitaj, Mark Nowak, M. NourbeSe Philip, Vanessa Place, and Claudia Rankine, Leong analyzes a range of twenty-first-century poems that have been reviled, celebrated, or in some cases met with equally telling indifference. In doing so, Leong offers nuanced and non-polemical treatments of some of the most controversial debates about race and ethnicity in twenty-first century literary culture. Situating his objects of study within the wider context of the humanities, Leong's Extending the Document in Contemporary North American Poetry suggests nothing less than a continual extension of our conceptions of poetry"-- Provided by publisher

Why have so many contemporary poets turned to source material, from newspapers to governmental records, as inspiration for their poetry? How can citational poems offer a means of social engagement? Contested Records analyzes how some of the most well-known twenty-first century North American poets work with fraught documents. Whether it's the legal paperwork detailing the murder of 132 African captives, state transcriptions of the last words of death row inmates, or testimony from miners and rescue workers about a fatal mine disaster, author Michael Leong reveals that much of the power of contemporary poetry rests in its potential to select, adapt, evaluate, and extend public documentation.

Examining the use of documents in the works of Kenneth Goldsmith, Vanessa Place, Amiri Baraka, Claudia Rankine, M. NourbeSe Philip, and others, Leong reveals how official records can evoke a wide range of emotions—from hatred to veneration, from indifference to empathy, from desire to disgust. He looks at techniques such as collage, plagiarism, re-reporting, and textual outsourcing, and evaluates some of the most loved—and reviled—contemporary North American poems. Ultimately, Leong finds that if bureaucracy and documentation have the power to police and traumatize through the exercise of state power, then so, too, can document-based poetry function as an unofficial, counterhegemonic, and popular practice that authenticates marginalized experiences at the fringes of our cultural memory.

This book, a follow-up to Kitaj's influential "First Diasporist Manifesto" (1989), is a personal reflection on the Jewish Question in contemporary art as it is lived and painted and imagined by one of today's most innovative and controversial artists. In 615 distinct propositions that deliberately echo the Commandments of Jewish Law, Kitaj here channels his ideas for a new Diasporist art in a daring stream of consciousness. Including 41 images of the artist's work chosen by him to accompany the text, this beautifully crafted volume is a unique and fascinating look into an artist's unusual life and work. From "The Second Diasporist Manifesto" 'But I swore to become myself - the new Jewish painter of a skeptical Diasporist art, born in Modernism, which cleaves to my own uncanny Jewish life of study, painting, unthinkable thoughts and near death...I admit that my Manifesto-poem is very personal, as a poem can be. But one would have to also unpack the cultural secrets of a book on Islamic Art, or Chinese or Egyptian or African Art. My Jewish Art lives a more Modernist Secret life. The Jewish Diaspora is not the only one. It's just mine.' From dandelions and violets to mushrooms and autumn leaves, this collection of embroidery motifs is inspired by nature walks. Inspired by the wonder and beauty of the natural world, the embroidery motifs offered here evoke wildflower meadows and woodland walks. With lifelike yet whimsical plants and flowers, as well as mushrooms, leaves, trees, and birds, the flora and fauna presented here offer a delightful and beautiful range of motifs drawn from nature. Featuring beautiful photographs, clear step-by-step instructions, and detailed diagrams, this book will be an inspiring guide for those new to embroidery and a fresh and unique offering for those experienced with needle and thread. "This book, a follow up to Kitaj's influential First Diasporist Manifesto (1989), is a personal reflection on the Jewish Question in contemporary art as it is lived and painted and imagined by one of today's most innovative and controversial artists. In 615 distinct propositions that deliberately echo the Commandments of Jewish Law, Kitaj here channels his ideas for a new Diasporist art in a daring stream of consciousness. Including 41 images of the artist's work chosen by him to accompany the text, this beautifully crafted volume is a unique and fascinating look into an artist's unusual life and work."--Publisher's website "Inspired by the wonder and beauty of the natural world, the embroidery motifs offered here evoke wildflower meadows and woodland walks. With lifelike yet whimsical plants and flowers, as well as mushrooms, leaves, trees, and birds, the flora and fauna presented here offer a delightful and beautiful range of motifs drawn from nature. Featuring beautiful photographs, clear step-by-step instructions, and detailed diagrams, this book will be an inspiring guide for those new to embroidery and a fresh and unique offering for those experienced with needle and thread"-- Provided by publisher A follow-up to "First Diasporist Manifesto", this book is a personal reflection on the Jewish Question in contemporary art as it is lived and painted and imagined by one of the most innovative and controversial artists. Including 41 images of the artist's work, it takes a look into an artist's unusual life and work.