Poetry In Society Research Articles

The Oral Aurality of the Radio Waray Siday

The end of print culture raises many disturbing questions about the position of poetry amidst these immense cultural and technological changes. What will be the place of the poet and his poetry in society now that we are at the cutting edge of technology? What will be the advantage of poetry in what Walter J. Ong calls the technologizing of the word? This study focuses on how the Waray siday as vernacular poetry from the margins emerges into a new form of oral history, known now as secondary orality, as it finds its way on the radio. It analyzes the distinct oral and aural qualities of the radio Waray siday as oral poetry, and how this soundscape somehow contributed to the characteristics of Waray language as reflected in the radio Waray siday. It illustrates how the interplay of orality and aurality create sense and affect in the radio Waray siday that makes it a revitalized, modernized, and powerful poetry. Analysis is grounded on the affect theory which posits that the affective power of the voice (orality), combined with the intimacy of the listening process (aurality), results in a change in behavior realized by listening to the reading of oral poetry; the orality theory which contends the intrinsic superiority of oral to written poetry, even in the age of print; and the radio inclusive theory which shows the link between the radio text, context, and reception. It describes the hybridity of the radio and its intertextuality—an exploration into a multidimensional phenomenon. This paper emphasizes that the meaning of poetry exists in relation to sound (letters waiting to become sound) and visual shape—that sound/shape articulates (and creates) meaning transcribed by a writing that “listens” to reading.

Introduction

Portuguese Studies vol. 36 no. 2 (2020), 129–31© Modern Humanities Research Association 2020 Introduction Rosa Maria Martelo and Paulo de Medeiros ‘Is poetry important?’ asks Bernard O’Donoghue right at the beginning of his recentPoetry:AVeryShortIntroduction.1 Thisquestioning,andself-questioning, of poetry is so common as to probably qualify as one of poetry’s hallmarks. Suspicions of poetry, as well as grand claims about it, abound. From Plato’s (in)famous banishment of the poets from the ideal city, to Shelley’s equally wellknown and often cited assertion that ‘[p]oets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World’,2 poetry, it seems, can stand for anything. Adrienne Rich has often questioned what the role and function of poetry is, and, more to our point now, what poetry’s standing in the world is. In a short essay printed in The Guardian, Adrienne Rich took this in her incomparable way, and commented ironically on the ‘free market view’ of poetry that would render it redundant: ‘There’s actually an odd correlation between these ideas: poetry is either inadequate, even immoral, in the face of human suffering, or it’s unprofitable, hence useless. Either way, poets are advised to hang our heads or fold our tents. Yet in fact, throughout the world, transfusions of poetic language can and do quite literally keep bodies and souls together — and more’.3 The imbrications of poetry in society as well as poetry’s aesthetic claims, as Rich points out, do not constitute a paradox at all, and certainly are not mutually exclusive: ‘we can also define the “aesthetic”, not as a privileged and sequestered rendering of human suffering, but as news of an awareness, a resistance, which totalising systems want to quell: art reaching into us for what’s still passionate, still unintimidated, still unquenched’. This is also, in a sense, what Emily Dickinson expressed so well, as O’Donoghue reminds us: ‘I dwell in Possibility — | A fairer House than Prose — | More numerous of Windows — | Superior — for Doors –’.4 Without claiming any universality for poetry, and mindful of the historical specificities that always inform any cultural expression, we would like to affirm much the same qualities, the same degree of introspection and critical self-reflection, of engagement with society in all of its variants, and the same exalted claims on 1 Bernard O’Donoghue, Poetry: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), p. 1. 2 Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘A Defence of Poetry’ [1821; 1840], in The Major Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 701. 3 Adrienne Rich, ‘Legislators of the World’, Guardian, 18 November 2006, [accessed 29 February 2020]. 4 Emily Dickinson, ‘I dwell in Possibility’, in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. by Thomas H. Johnson (Boston, New York, and London: Little, Brown and Co., 1961), p, 327; here as quoted by O’Donoghue, p. 47. Rosa Maria Martelo and Paulo de Medeiros 130 the aesthetic and the emphasis on form, from within the very multiplicity of voices and shapes, as marking contemporary Portuguese poetry. The present special issue of Portuguese Studies wants to focus on this poetry, from the latter part of the twentieth century to our actual present. This poetry figures here in various ways, most directly with the section containing a brief anthology of texts from some of contemporary Portuguese poetry’s most significant authors. And of course the collection of critical essays that engage with the various issues and problematics that have marked this poetry, including a continuous experimentation in terms of form, media, and intermediality. Added to this we also have six reviews of recent books and journals that allow for yet another view of our subject’s vibrancy. As organizers we refused any illusions or aspirations to exhaustive coverage, which would in any case always be impossible, even if we had more than the space of any one volume. Nonetheless we think that the current special issue, in both its critical and anthological components, allows for a productive reflection concerning the main lines that have been structuring contemporary Portuguese poetry, without dismissing in any way its modernist foundations. Indeed, it is not haphazardly that the critical essays, when read in sequence, make abundantly...

Introduction

Portuguese Studies vol. 36 no. 2 (2020), 129–31© Modern Humanities Research Association 2020 Introduction Rosa Maria Martelo and Paulo de Medeiros ‘Is poetry important?’ asks Bernard O’Donoghue right at the beginning of his recentPoetry:AVeryShortIntroduction.1 Thisquestioning,andself-questioning, of poetry is so common as to probably qualify as one of poetry’s hallmarks. Suspicions of poetry, as well as grand claims about it, abound. From Plato’s (in)famous banishment of the poets from the ideal city, to Shelley’s equally wellknown and often cited assertion that ‘[p]oets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World’,2 poetry, it seems, can stand for anything. Adrienne Rich has often questioned what the role and function of poetry is, and, more to our point now, what poetry’s standing in the world is. In a short essay printed in The Guardian, Adrienne Rich took this in her incomparable way, and commented ironically on the ‘free market view’ of poetry that would render it redundant: ‘There’s actually an odd correlation between these ideas: poetry is either inadequate, even immoral, in the face of human suffering, or it’s unprofitable, hence useless. Either way, poets are advised to hang our heads or fold our tents. Yet in fact, throughout the world, transfusions of poetic language can and do quite literally keep bodies and souls together — and more’.3 The imbrications of poetry in society as well as poetry’s aesthetic claims, as Rich points out, do not constitute a paradox at all, and certainly are not mutually exclusive: ‘we can also define the “aesthetic”, not as a privileged and sequestered rendering of human suffering, but as news of an awareness, a resistance, which totalising systems want to quell: art reaching into us for what’s still passionate, still unintimidated, still unquenched’. This is also, in a sense, what Emily Dickinson expressed so well, as O’Donoghue reminds us: ‘I dwell in Possibility — | A fairer House than Prose — | More numerous of Windows — | Superior — for Doors –’.4 Without claiming any universality for poetry, and mindful of the historical specificities that always inform any cultural expression, we would like to affirm much the same qualities, the same degree of introspection and critical self-reflection, of engagement with society in all of its variants, and the same exalted claims on 1 Bernard O’Donoghue, Poetry: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), p. 1. 2 Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘A Defence of Poetry’ [1821; 1840], in The Major Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 701. 3 Adrienne Rich, ‘Legislators of the World’, Guardian, 18 November 2006, [accessed 29 February 2020]. 4 Emily Dickinson, ‘I dwell in Possibility’, in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. by Thomas H. Johnson (Boston, New York, and London: Little, Brown and Co., 1961), p, 327; here as quoted by O’Donoghue, p. 47. Rosa Maria Martelo and Paulo de Medeiros 130 the aesthetic and the emphasis on form, from within the very multiplicity of voices and shapes, as marking contemporary Portuguese poetry. The present special issue of Portuguese Studies wants to focus on this poetry, from the latter part of the twentieth century to our actual present. This poetry figures here in various ways, most directly with the section containing a brief anthology of texts from some of contemporary Portuguese poetry’s most significant authors. And of course the collection of critical essays that engage with the various issues and problematics that have marked this poetry, including a continuous experimentation in terms of form, media, and intermediality. Added to this we also have six reviews of recent books and journals that allow for yet another view of our subject’s vibrancy. As organizers we refused any illusions or aspirations to exhaustive coverage, which would in any case always be impossible, even if we had more than the space of any one volume. Nonetheless we think that the current special issue, in both its critical and anthological components, allows for a productive reflection concerning the main lines that have been structuring contemporary Portuguese poetry, without dismissing in any way its modernist foundations. Indeed, it is not haphazardly that the critical essays, when read in sequence, make abundantly...

Ḥammūd Ramaḍān: Modernity and Poetry in Algeria

Abstract Starting from Pierre Bourdieu’s claim that “the impetus for change” — what I identify with modernity — “resides in the struggles that take place in the corresponding fields of production” (Bourdieu 1995: 81), and from a reading of literary texts I discussed elsewhere (Guardi 2016), in this paper I will present the life and work of Ḥammūd Ramaḍān (1906–1945). My aim is to highlight the “impetus for change” that occurred in the Algerian literary field long before 1962. Ḥammūd Ramaḍān, an Algerian poet and intellectual, thoroughly discussed the role of poetry in society and proposed new ways of writing in a changing era. He can be considered the first Arab poet who challenged the classic mode of Arabic language poetry in Algeria, and this happened before the emergence of the free verse movement in Iraq. His work will be analysed not only within the general framework of Arab modernity with the aim to provide a new definition of the Arab modernity’s canon, but also within the framework of Algerian literary production in Arabic. My main focus will be on some of his theoretical writings, in which he urges his fellow poets and intellectuals to make fundamental changes in their use of language in poetry so as to get closer to society. Although well versed in classical Arabic and in the Arab-Muslim classical heritage, Ramaḍān sees all this not as a chain that keeps the poet tethered to the past, but as a springboard to jump into the future.

Er apostrofen et økologisk instrument?

Hans Lind: “The apostrophe – an ecological instrument?”This article investigates the relationship between the lyrical apostrophe and ecological thinking. Drawing on literary theories and ecological thinkers such as Jane Bennett and Timothy Morton, the article concludes that the apostrophe is related to the concept of ecological sensibility and is useful for communicating complex ecological ideas such as coexistence. These conclusions are based on an analysis of several poems containing apostrophes and a discussion of the role of poetry in soci ety and its ability to facilitate ecological thinking and awareness.

The Poetics of Relational Place-Making and Autonomy in Stevens

The Poetics of Relational Place-Making and Autonomy in Stevens Gül Bilge Han There is a total building and there isA total dream. There are words of this, Words, in a storm, that beat around the shapes. —Wallace Stevens, “Sketch of the Ultimate Politician” I. Introduction OVER THE LAST FEW decades, a wide range of critical approaches has forcefully demonstrated the active engagement of Wallace Stevens’ poetry with its literary-political and cultural surroundings. Critics such as Alan Filreis, James Longenbach, and, more recently, Bonnie Costello and Milton A. Cohen have effectively challenged long-established views of Stevens as an isolated aesthete. By tracing Stevens’ growth as a poet against the backdrop of his historical milieu, these critics have documented and explored how, especially in his Depression-era poetry, Stevens developed a dialogic relationship to the cultural and political events of his time.1 My contribution to this body of scholarship brings into a new and different focus the issue of autonomy, which has figured only marginally or negatively in literary debates that set out to explore Stevens’ poetry historically. While previous criticism has highlighted several aspects of Stevens’ development of a socially responsive poetics—especially in the 1930s—I will argue that the poet during this period developed an elaborate conception of aesthetic autonomy as a necessary condition for poetic engagement. Beyond epitomizing a privileged retreat into the protected space of the aesthetic—as it is often understood—autonomy, in Stevens’ poetry, is imagined in distinctly relational terms; and by “relational” I mean specifically the lines of interconnection between his poetry and its wider material conditions. [End Page 143] One of the striking ways in which Stevens’ vision of aesthetic autonomy manifests itself in his poems, and one that I want to explore here, is through the use of spatial images and architectural spaces. Stevens’ poetry of the 1930s wrestles with questions of poetry’s autonomy, its cultural status and social function by means of architectural imagery that often incorporates the demolition and restoration of buildings. To put it differently, Stevens examines the question of the place of poetry in society by making up places for poetry. Architectural archetypes become figures for aesthetic independence and sovereignty, posing a question for criticism: what does it mean to treat the issue of poetry’s autonomy and social function in terms of making up places and architectural images? The focus on the spatial sensibility that inhabits Stevens’ work provides an effective angle for discerning the relational dynamics offered by his version of aesthetic autonomy. His spatial formations of architectural environments display an impulse to project a separate aesthetic terrain that communicates with, and resists, influential cultural discourses regarding art’s political efficacy in the 1930s. Far from assuming a position of disregard for art’s societal relevance, the impulse to demarcate a separate space is motivated by a desire to envisage new forms of engagement with the unsettling sociopolitical circumstances of the Depression. Contrary to commonly established notions of autonomy as the art object’s immunity from the world, the ideal of autonomy in Stevens’ poetry turns on the effort to form an independent relation to social crises and political urgency. Modernist claims to autonomy are often said to rest upon an ideological assertion of art’s detachment from sociopolitical and historical frames of reference.2 This perception has begun to change in recent times, as several commentators have embarked on analyzing previously overlooked interactions between aesthetic autonomy and sociopolitical signification in the arts and literature. In Modernism’s Other Work (2012), Lisa Siraganian, for example, explicates the concept of modernist autonomy as the art object’s freedom from external ascriptions of meaning, rather than its withdrawal from the world. In so doing, she draws out the political implications of what she calls “meaning’s autonomy” in modernism’s deeper commitment to classical liberal ideals and to questions of artistic agency and freedom (11). Michael Kelly, in A Hunger for Aesthetics (2012), on the other hand, sees in modernist and contemporary artistic configurations of autonomy the potential of art’s political recalibration to enact public engagement in ways free from subject-oriented notions of intentionality. Andrew Goldstone’s Fictions...

Threshold Poetics: Stevens and D. W. Winnicott’s “Not-Communicating”

Threshold Poetics:Stevens and D. W. Winnicott’s “Not-Communicating” John W. Steen BY TURNS HIDEBOUND and exuberant, recondite and sententious, Wallace Stevens’ poems invite readers to track the orientation of an ever-changing self. “What counted was mythology of self,” Stevens writes in “The Comedian as the Letter C” (CPP 22). But especially in this poem, whose main character stands apart from and then, suddenly, among human and inhuman others, the self is rarely still enough to locate, much less to become the object of a myth. Two epigrams in the posthumously published collection of Stevens’ aphorisms “Adagia” suggest the tension at work in developing a poetics of the self in transition. The first urges the poet to advance from the individual imagination to a fictive poetics that would address a community outside the poet: “The transition from make believe for one’s self to make believe for others is the beginning, or the end, of poetry in the individual” (CPP 908). Such a mandate is consistent with Stevens’ bold, if critically contested, claims about the ends of poetry in society—that it may “help people to live their lives” (CPP 661). But Stevens checks his own boldness in a second adage, one that suggests the difficult labor of poetry consists of making the opposite movement, from external concerns to a resolutely inward site: “We have to step boldly into man’s interior world or not at all” (CPP 909). What is striking, though, is that neither adage assumes the fixity of an external or internal location. Rather, both speak from the threshold of “man’s interior” and exterior worlds about a necessary “transition” or “step” toward the proper location of poetic experience. These prose fragments suggest that the self imaged and articulated in Stevens’ poems dwells fitfully between solitude and society. In the analysis that follows, I suggest that the poetic strategies in this space, which marshal sounds and speech at the limits of audibility and intelligibility, are consonant with the poetic self’s transient and transitional temperament. By now, criticism has fully established that Stevens’ investments in the exterior world—history, politics, the news—deserve an important place in our understanding of his work. In the first few decades of Stevens scholarship since the middle of the twentieth century, most assessments of the poet granted pride of place to a world-avoiding interiority that some critics [End Page 15] have scorned as solipsism and others have praised, at times hyperbolically, as American poetry’s closest approximation to the quintessence of the lyric. Yet in the last three decades, led by Milton Bates, Alan Filreis, James Longenbach, and Jacqueline Vaught Brogan, a new perspective that recognizes Stevens’ engagement in the events of his day has emerged as a corrective. While none of these scholars claim that contemporary history was, to use a phrase from “Local Objects,” the “absolute foyer” of Stevens’ work (CPP 474), they do furnish the necessary reminder that his poetry privileges change, variation, and modulation—the desire for a foyer rather than the sense of already inhabiting it.1 To those critics who have argued that Stevens’ poems demonstrate movements in accordance with natural cycles (George Lensing), the mercurial variations of mood and emotion (Helen Vendler), and the instability of language (J. Hillis Miller), I would add that a dual obligation to the challenges of self-knowledge and the conflicts of ethics drives Stevens’ poems. The restless movement that his poems observe and demand also describes the instability characteristic of his writing’s oscillation between internal and external sites of concern. Writing roughly contemporaneously with the earliest poems of Harmonium, Sigmund Freud claims in his Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis of 1915–17 that psychic defenses play a role analogous to flight in the “flight or flight” response.2 Rather than provide a physical escape from danger, however, defenses permit the conscious ego a mental escape from threats by means of denial, splitting, reaction formation, and other unconscious processes of reality distortion. In my own reading, I have no wish to psychologize Stevens as neurotic, or even to apply the analogy. Instead, I propose to undertake a psychoanalytically inflected reading of his poetry because Freud...

Looking Back at al-Andalus: The Poetics of Loss and Nostalgia in Medieval Arabic and Hebrew Literature (review)

Reviewed by: Looking Back at al-Andalus: The Poetics of Loss and Nostalgia in Medieval Arabic and Hebrew Literature Michelle Hamilton Alexander E. Elinson . Looking Back at al-Andalus: The Poetics of Loss and Nostalgia in Medieval Arabic and Hebrew Literature. Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2009. 190 pp. ISBN: 978-90-04-16680-6 In this monograph, Alexander Elinson examines al-Andalus as a literary construction through poems and prose works dedicated to Andalusi urban centers written over the course of several centuries, from the height of the Umayyad caliphate to the end of Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula. It adds to a body of similar studies, including Ross Brann's Power in the Portrayal, Jonathan Decter's Iberian Jewish Literature, and Esperanza Alfonso's Islamic Culture through Jewish Eyes. Elinson's study is a comparison of Hebrew and Arabic literature written in al-Andalus, and he focuses on the cultural similarities that mark both as Andalusi. He examines "how different authors evoke the memory of their lost Andalus and how these expressions are affected by genre, language, and historical and personal contexts" (9). The work contains four chapters, an appendix that includes the Arabic and Hebrew originals of the works he cites, and a glossary. In the first chapter, Elinson analyzes how the eastern form of the poetic genre of ritha' al-mudun (city elegy) was adapted by Andalusi poets to reflect the historical vicissitudes that ravaged Andalusi urban centers. He explores a corpus of poems elegizing the Umayyad cities that fell into different hands as the caliphate dissolved. These poems conform to an eastern model but also provide us with a "literary geography of al-Andalus" (15). The desert landscapes of the early nasib section of the classical qasida are transformed into the palaces and gardens of the city. This is the type of ritha' al-mudun we find in the work of eleventh-century Andalusi poets, who, as Elinson points out, combine the familiar eastern urban landscapes (Zamzam, Mecca, Najd) with distinctively Andalusi ones (Valencia, Cordoba, Sevilla). Elinson gives a detailed analysis of Ibn Shuhayd's ritha' for Cordoba and provides an English translation of the entire poem. His close reading points to how the poet makes use of the typical nasib and images of Arabian and Syrian landscapes to underscore the fate of the Andalusi places that are the real focus of the poet's lament. [End Page 205] In ch. 2, Elinson examines how the use of poetry and poetic motifs (particularly those of loss and nostalgia) in the Andalusi prose of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in and of itself conveys a sense of loss. Building on the studies of Abdelfattah Kilito and James Monroe, Elinson argues that the prose of the maqamat underscores poetry's displacement as the genre par excellence in the Muslim world and simultaneously reflects the fracturing of central authority in al-Andalus. Elinson examines al-Saraqusti's Qayrawan maqama as an expression of "what it meant to be an Andalusi in the twelfth century" (60). The city of Qayrawan was sacked by Banu Hilal Arabs in the mid-eleventh century; Elinson posits that for al-Saraqusti it symbolized the subsequent fall of a string of Andalusi urban centers, including Toledo (1085), Barbastro (1064), Valencia (1094), and al-Saraqusti's hometown, Zaragoza, in 1118. By rendering what seems to be a traditional nasib over the ruins of Qayrawan and then interrupting it with a dialogue in which a trickster who recites a qasida that, although deploying several of the expected conventions, nevertheless encourages the main character to avoid the type of nostalgic ritha' he has undertaken in Qayrawan, al-Saraqusti subverts the tradition of the ritha' al-mudun and the Bedouin traditions from which it is derived. In Elinson's opinion the work underscores how the traditional Bedouin poet's position has been replaced by that of the urban elite, just as the maqama and prose have replaced poetry in society as the privileged form of Andalusi expression. Elinson compares this maqama and its use of the ritha' al-mudun to another roughly contemporary prose translation of the poetic genre of the mourning...

A Survey of the Themes and Techniques in Keamogetsi Joseph Molapong's Poetry

Keamogetsi Molapong’s poetry reflects the concerns of a socially engaged writer, artist, and activist who has devoted his life to promoting the arts in Namibia despite the financially precarious nature of such a life. His background is in theater for development, and his literary activities stem partly from involvement in development projects at the grassroots level, including, for example, sanitation programs in northern Namibia, industrial theater work, and voter education campaigns. Many of the projects that he has undertaken have been sponsored by nongovernmental organizations and donor and government agencies. My purpose in this paper is, first, to discuss Molapong’s perception of the role of poetry in society and in terms of the benefits he has derived from writing and performing. Second, I analyze his major thematic concerns, particularly the interface between politics and poetry. Third, I shall critique the thought-provoking love poems he has written. The argument of this paper is that the subtle manner in which he plays with words and sounds, in many poems, brings to mind the oral roots of his poetry and makes the point that he retains the popular base of the Namibian struggle for independence that has been all but abandoned by the new political elite that were its leaders.

Shelley among Others: The Play of the Intertext and the Idea of Language by Stuart Peterfreund (review)

MLR, 99.3,2004 755 pression (in the material field) or the despair of that minority of writers (most notably Byron) who were disenchanted by the 'crowning carnage'. Brief review necessitates simplistic summary. It is unfair to the flexibilityof Shaw's nuanced and highly theorized account. The text readily leaps to overarching generalities to redefine Romanticism, drawing (often uncritically) upon authorities such as Lacan (not an obvious figure to quote on Waterloo) or Christensen. Some of the leaps are demanding. Thus Coleridge's Zapolya is claimed to reveal, as 'the meaning of Waterloo', 'the renunciation of endless erotic play in the resumption of symbolic castration' (p. 137) and Wordsworth's guilty confession of pleasure in the narration of battle is argued to show how, 'in the symbolic order [. . .] the poet's participation in a culture of sacrifice [. . .] finds a perverse form of reassurance, to invoke Rene Girard's analysis, in rehearsing the spectacle of its own dissolution' (pp. 140-41). This kind of writing functions at a high level of abstraction which, forthe 'pedestrian muse' of this reviewer, sometimes recalls Byron's comment on Coleridge (in the Dedication of Don Juan): 'I wish he would explain his explanation.' What exactly is meant, for instance, by the words 'real' and 'other' (with or without capitalization) in a statement such as 'With Coleridge there remains [. . .] the pathos of having failed to reach the place ofthe Real in the Other' (p. 130)? In contradistinctionone might claim that had Coleridge got to the 'real' he would have outsoared not only Plato but St Paul! Cardiff University Malcolm Kelsall Shelley among Others: The Play of theIntertext and theIdea ofLanguage. By Stuart Peterfreund. Baltimore, MD, and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2002. xiii + 4o6pp. ?38.50. ISBN 0-8018-6751-7. Stuart Peterfreund's aim is ambitious and laudable in a critical climate which is still redolent of fragmentariness and almost compulsory patchiness: 'to produce a com? prehensive study of Shelley's poetry, including most ofthe major poems and many of the so-called minor poems as well' (p. ix). This endeavour situates Peterfreund's book among those studies which attempt to draw together the idealistic and the politically grounded dimensions of Shelley's work, to make 'Shelley whole' so to speak, but it also acknowledges the heteroglossic nature of Shelley's thought and work. Broadly, Peterfreund attempts to discuss 'the intertextual and linguistic conceptions and prac? tices that Shelley himself deployed in seeking and claiming forhimself a place in the Western literary tradition' (p. ix). Peterfreund emphasizes the importance of philo? sophy, psychoanalytic criticism, and theories of language forhis own analysis and for Shelley' s understanding of the role of poetry in society. More specifically, Peterfreund examines what he understands 'Shelley's idea of language and its play to be, and how [he understands] this idea to inform the formal and thematic elements, as well as the social focus, of his poetry in general and of several of his major poems in particular' (p. 2). For Peterfreund, Shelley's play of language, throughout his ceuvre, centres primarily on the continuous tension between metaphor and metonymy: 'It is the drama of moving beyond historical contingency if not beyond temporality outright, the drama of fostering the reign of metaphor and forestalling the reign of metonymy, of fostering heteroglossia and forestalling the advent of a common language, that is the basis for the [sie] both the artistic and the social engagement of Shelley's poetry' (p. 24). So far so good. This focus on the tension between metaphor and metonymy, however useful as a starting point, is unfortunately reduced to a rather rigid instrument of evaluation, and, as a result, the texts under scrutiny suffer from readings which do not reflect the ongoing exploratory and probing struggle for elucidation so often at the heart 756 Reviews of Shelley's poetry. In some ways I read Shelley as a poet of obstinate questionings, who has, in Michael O'Neill's words, 'a dislike of reaching conclusions' (Romanti? cism and the Self-Conscious Poem (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 131). Peterfreund 's interpretations, however, are geared towards conclusions which are coloured by the predominance of either metaphor or metonymy: 'Metaphor...

Fineart Forum and F.A.S.T.: Experiments in Electronic Publishing in the Arts

The poetry conference was established in reaction against these and other drawbacks of conventional poetry workshops. Poets write from diverse backgrounds and disciplines, but the one thing they have in common is the need to know right away if they have hit the mark or missed it entirely. The poetry conference provides this kind of accessibility. The poet, equipped with a personal computer, modem and telecommunications software package, accesses the host computer and logs onto the system by typing his or her user ID and password. Once these have been verified, the host system displays an entry prompt. The poet need only type the command 'g poet' in order to be transferred into the poetry conference. From a list of topics, the poet selects a subject for reading and/or responding. He or she has the option of typing a response directly from the computer keyboard or sending a prepared poem or document via the telecommunications package. Quite often feedback will begin coming in from other poets throughout the country within 24 hours, while the poet is still in the midst of appraising the poem or project. Another advantage to this electronic-workshop method is that the author has the benefit of gathering responses from poets nationwide to gain a better perspective of the poem's accessibility to a broader audience. This not only saves time but provides additional inspiration to the poet to continue the work. The online poetry conference extends even farther beyond the customary workshop/seminar by providing the poet with a forum for informal exchanges as well as critiquing of poems. Evaluations of the strengths and weaknesses of accomplished poets, lists of favorite poetry books, references for poesy and poetic terms, fundamentals for reading to an audience, and the political value of poetry in society are only a sampling of subjects that are available to the poet online. Perhaps the best feature of all is that this arena, spawned by the high-tech industry, allows the poet to gain perspectives and make contact with people and poetry around the world on the poet's traditional meager budget.