Going for Broke: Tom Raworth and Lyric

Abstract

This dissertation reads Raworth's poetry against recent reformulations of ‘Lyric’ and considers how they might inform each other. It suggests that Raworth's work resists the traditional ideal of lyric poetry, which he perceives as an ‘exaggeration’. The desire for a more accurate representation of the difficulties of self-expression spurs him to ever greater lengths of experimentation in his effort to produce something ‘worth reading’.