Abstract
This article intervenes in debates about experimental poets' ethical obligations by examining Robin Coste Lewis's "Voyage of the Sable Venus" (2015), a long poem for which she drew all the text from written descriptions of millennia of visual art depicting Black female figures. It elucidates Lewis's engagement with these archives as a key contribution both to revisionist archival scholarship and to conceptual aesthetics. Focusing equally on Lewis's research and writing process and on the resulting poem, this paper demonstrates that "Voyage of the Sable Venus" refutes the widespread claim that conceptual aesthetics produce "unreadable" texts. Instead, Lewis insists that close reading both visual art and her poetry—rather than succumbing to distant reading or data-driven approaches—constitutes an ethical act that is necessary to correct misrepresentations of Black women in Western art and life, historically and today.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
