Contemporary Poetry and Poetics by Women Writers – Dr Redell Olsen/ Dr
Will Montgomery
This unit aims to be an advanced introduction to the writing of selected
contemporary women poets (post 2000). These texts will be placed in the context
of contemporary debates in innovative poetics and also considered in relation to
modernist strategies of avant-garde practice by previous women writers.
Students will examine and critically appraise the work of a number of
contemporary women writers whose writing appears to evince a relationship to
an earlier modernist period. The extent and importance of these relationships will
be examined from a variety of mutually informing perspectives: through a
consideration of the direct influence of previous writers or theorists on this work,
through a consideration and comparison of the strategies of practice when
placed in parallel with those of the modern period, through a consideration and
comparison of the differing treatment of related themes, concerns and ideas,
through an exploration of the different critical and literary receptions afforded to
women writers at different points from 1880-2012. Students will investigate and
evaluate the extent to which contemporary women writers have utilised, adapted
and transformed modernist strategies of practice and to what ends.
By the end of the five-week unit, the student should:

have a specific knowledge about a range of key texts and contexts relating
to writing by contemporary women writers.

have a knowledge and critical understanding of how that work relates to
practical and theoretical debates in a variety of modernist, late modernist
and postmodernist practices.
Course Structure:
Students will be asked to prepare short presentations and occasional
seminar papers on selections from the indicated reading below each topic.
1. Autobiography:
Rae Armantrout, True Atelos (1998)
Leslie Scalapino Autobiography Wesleyan (2003)
Caroline Bergvall, Cropper Nightboat (2010)
H.D. Tribute to Freud New Directions (1974)
2. War and the Contemporary Moment
Juliana Spahr , This Connection of Everyone with Lungs New California Press
(2005)
Andrea Brady, Wildfire: A Verse Essay (online version,
http://www.krupskayabooks.com/wildfire/poem.html)
Gertrude Stein, "Composition as Explanation" (1925), at the Poetry Foundation
website, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/essay/238702
Lynette Roberts, Gods with Stainless Ears (2005 [1951])
3. Lyrics Fragment:
Susan Howe, The Midnight New Directions (2003).
Denise Riley, Selected Poems Reality Street (2000).
Mina Loy, The Lost Luna Baedeker Carcanet (1997).
4. Pastoral Encounters:
Lisa Robertson, The Weather Reality Street (2001)
Carol Watts, Zeta Landscape Shearsman (2011)
Redell Olsen, Punk Faun Subpress (2012)
5. Urban. Landscape. Home:
Jena Osman, Public Figures Wesleyan (2012).
Marjorie Welish, In the Futurity Lounge Coffee House Press (2011)
Hope Mirrlees, "Paris" in Collected Poems Carcanet (2011 [1918]) and online
here: http://hopemirrlees.com/texts/Paris_Hope_Mirrlees_1920.pdf
Bibliography:
Contemporary:
Rae Armantrout, True Atelos (1998)
Caroline Bergvall, Meddle English Night Boat Books (2010).
Susan Howe, The Midnight New Directions (2003).
Jena Osman, Public Figures Wesleyan (2012).
Denise Riley, Selected Poems Reality Street (2000).
Leslie Scalapino Autobiography Wesleyan (2003)
Marjorie Welish, In the Futurity Lounge Coffee House Press (2011)
Modernist:
H.D. Tribute to Freud New Directions (1974)
Mina Loy, The Lost Luna Baedeker Carcanet (1997).
Hope Mirrlees, Collected Poems Carcanet (2011).
Gertrude Stein, Look at Me Now and Here I Am: Writing and Lectures, 1909-45
(Peter Owen, 2004).
Lynette Roberts, Gods with Stainless Ears (2005 [1951])
Anthologies:
Carrie Etter. Ed. Infinite Difference: Other Women Poetries by U.K. Women
Poets Shearsman (2010).
Elisabeth Frost and Cynthia Hogue. Eds. Innovative Women Poets: An Anthology
of Contemporary Poetry and Interviews University of Iowa (2006).
Caroline Bergvall, Laynie Browne, Teresa Carmody, Vanessa Place. Eds. I'll
Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women Les Figues, 2012.
Indicative Secondary Reading:
Kathleen Fraser Translating the Unspeakable: Poetry and the Innovative
Necessity University of Alabama (1999).
Linda A. Kinnahan Lyric Interventions: Feminism, Experimental Poetry and
Contemporary Discourse University of Iowa Press (2004).
Deborah Mix A Vocabulary of Thinking: Gertrude Stein and Contemporary North
American Women's Innovative Writing University of Iowa (2007).
Sianne Ngai Ugly Feelings Harvard University Press (2005).
Joan Retallack The Poethical Wager University of California Press, 2003.
Juliana Spahr Everybody's Autonomy: Connective Reading and Collective
Identity University of Alabama Press (2001).
Ann Vickery Leaving Lines of Gender: A Feminist Genealogy of Language
Writing Wesleyan University Press (2000).