Whether the subject is post cards, talk shows, or verse from places as different as academia and MySpace, as cultural production and as literary trickery, the material examined in this volume demonstrates the central role of poetry as an active cultural presence. By bringing together cultural studies, poetics, and formalist reading without antagonism, Poetry after Cultural Studies looks toward a poetry criticism that does not merely “do” cultural studies but, rather, employs the resources of that discipline to examine an increasingly legible and audible record of poetic practice.

 

Exploring a wide range of poetry from the nineteenth century to the present, Poetryafter Cultural Studies showcases the unexpectedly rich intersection of cultural studies theory and current poetry scholarship. These essays show forcefully that cultural studies and poetics—once thought incommensurable—in fact are mutually informative and richer for the effort.

A diverse collection of essays and interviews on reading, teaching, and writing poetry from a preeminent critic and scholar
 
Jed Rasula is a distinguished scholar of avant-garde poetics, noted for his erudition, intellectual range, and critical independence. Wreading: A Poetics of Awareness, or How Do We Know What We Know? is a collection of essays and interviews that reflects the breadth and diversity of his curiosity.

While this volume presents highlights from Rasula’s criticism, it also serves as a carefully assembled intellectual autobiography. Wreading consists of two parts: an assortment of Rasula’s solo criticism and selected interviews and conversations with other poets and scholars. These detailed conversations are with Evelyn Reilly, Leonard Schwartz, Tony Tost, Mike Chasar, Joel Bettridge, and Ming-Qian Ma. Their exchanges address ecopoetics, the corporate university, the sheer volume of contemporary poetry, and more. This substantial set of dialogues gives readers a glimpse inside a master critic’s deeply informed critical practice, illuminating his intellectual touchstones.

The balance between essay and interview achieves a distillation of Rasula’s long-established idea of “wreading.” In his original use, the term denotes how any act of criticism inherently adds to the body of writing that it purports to read. In this latest form, Wreading captures a critical perception that sparks insight and imagination, regardless of what it sees.