Poetics

This chapter presents an overview of current critical enterprises regarding the conceptualisation of poetics primarily in twentieth and twenty-first century poetries. Covering criticism published during 2010, this review assesses debates concerning the tensions between a poetics of self expression and the public sphere, the political efficacy of contemporary poetry, the impact of Asia and Asian philosophy on American poetics, the identity of Jewish-American modernist and contemporary poetics, as well as the relationship between poetry, community and social relations. The chapter also introduces a critical reconvening or re-reading of the New American Poetry in tandem with reflections on configurations of masculinity, subjectivity and phenomenology. Comparative readings of the modern ruin are offered through readings of European poets and poets of the Americas. Moreover the discussion incorporates recent studies on the following: poetry that perform encounters with the nonhuman world, the regeneration of the lyric impulse by contemporary poets, how poetry reflects upon issues of displacement and exile as well as a reflection on the negative effect of poststructuralist discourse on the critical reception of certain poetries in the past.