The Politics of Speech in Later Twentieth-Century Poetry: Local Tongues in Heaney, Brooks, Harrison, and Clifton (Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics)

The Politics of Speech in Later Twentieth-Century Poetry: Local Tongues in Heaney, Brooks, Harrison, and Clifton argues that local speech became a central facet of English-language poetry in the second half of the twentieth century. It is based on a key observation about four major poets from both sides of the Atlantic: Seamus Heaney, Gwendolyn Brooks, Tony Harrison, and Lucille Clifton all respond to societal crises by arranging, reproducing, and reconceiving their particular versions of local speech in poetic form. The book’s overarching claim is that “local tongues” in poetry have the capacity to bridge aesthetic and sociopolitical realms because nonstandard local speech declares its distinction from the status quo and binds people who have been subordinated by hierarchical social conditions, while harnessing those versions of speech into poetic structures can actively counter the very hierarchies that would degrade those languages. The diverse local tongues of these fourpoets marshaled into the forms of poetry situate them at once in literary tradition, in local contexts, and in prevailing social constructs. Acknowledgments Contents List of Figures Chapter 1: Introduction. Local Tongues: Twentieth-Century English-Language Poetry and the Politics of Speech Four Poets, Local Speech, and a New Formalism Earlier Twentieth-Century Colloquial Poetic Tongues (and Before) Transnational Local Tongues: Heaney, Brooks, Harrison, and Clifton Chapter 2: Troubled Tongues: Seamus Heaney and the Political Poetics of Speech Good Poem as Good Politics, or the Sex Appeal of Violence Local Speech as Poetic Strategy Local Speech in Heaney’s Early Poems Local Speech in Heaney’s Poems About the Troubles The Redress of Local Speech Chapter 3: The Gwendolynian Tongue: Gwendolyn Brooks’s Individualized Local Speech Brooks’s Staple Local-Speech Poem The Gwendolynian Tongue Brooks’s Sunday Speech Brooks’s Thaumaturgic Tongue Chapter 4: Tongue-Tied Fighting: Tony Harrison’s Linguistic Divisions Harrison’s Eloquence Harrison’s Colloquial Loiners, Miltons, and Satyrs Harrison v. Harrison Chapter 5: Mortal Tongues: Lucille Clifton’s Local-Speech Admonitions Clifton’s Black Speech Clifton’s Admonitions Clifton’s Local-Speech Testaments Clifton’s Oracular Vernacular Lucifer’s Local Speech in Lucille’s Eden Clifton’s “Messages” Chapter 6: Coda. Lashing Tongues: Twenty-First-Century Local-Speech Poems Works Cited Index The Politics of Speech in Later Twentieth-Century Poetry: Local Tongues in Heaney, Brooks, Harrison, and Clifton argues that local speech became a central facet of English-language poetry in the second half of the twentieth century. It is based on a key observation about four major poets from both sides of the Atlantic: Seamus Heaney, Gwendolyn Brooks, Tony Harrison, and Lucille Clifton all respond to societal crises by arranging, reproducing, and reconceiving their particular versions of local speech in poetic form. The books overarching claim is that "local tongues" in poetry have the capacity to bridge aesthetic and sociopolitical realms because nonstandard local speech declares its distinction from the status quo and binds people who have been subordinated by hierarchical social conditions, while harnessing those versions of speech into poetic structures can actively counter the very hierarchies that would degrade those languages. The diverse local tongues of these four poets marshaled into the forms of poetry situate them at once in literary tradition, in local contexts, and in prevailing social constructs