Poems of the American Empire: The Lyric Form in the Long Twentieth Century

209 Pages·2019·0.862 MB·English

by  Jen Hedler Phillis

Poems of the American Empire
The New American Canon
The Iowa Series in Contemporary Literature and Culture
Samuel Cohen, series editor
Poems
of the American Empire
the lyric form
in the long
twentieth century
Jen Hedler Phillis
University of Iowa Press / Iowa City
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright © 2019 by the University of Iowa Press
www.uipress.uiowa.edu
Printed in the United States of America
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No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or
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Printed on a cid- free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
Names: Phillis, Jen Hedler, 1980– author.
Title: Poems of the American empire : the lyric form in the long
twentieth century / Jen Hedler Phillis.
Description: Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, [2019]
| Series: The new American canon : the Iowa series in
contemporary literature and culture | Includes bibliographical
references and index. | 
Identifiers: lccn 2019002001 (print) | lccn 2019018913 (ebook)
| isbn 978-1-60938-662-7 (ebook) | isbn 978-1-60938-661-0
(paperback : alk. paper)
Subjects: lcsh: American poetry—20th century—H istory and
criticism. | Politics and literature— United States— History—20th
century.
Classification: lcc ps323.5 (ebook) | lcc ps323.5 .p54 2019
(print) | ddc 811/.040905—dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002001
For Nanette, Avery, and Chris

contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction / Poems Including History 1
1 We Are All Pound Now / The Cantos and the Shape of
the Economy 21
2 The All- Over Poem / William Carlos Williams’s Egalitarian
Aesthetics 53
3 Dido’s Secret / The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Limits
of Lyric 86
4 The New Stone Age / Contemporary Poets on the Beginning
of the American Empire 118
Coda. In Search of Lost Causes / Toward a Lyric
Interpretation of History 148
Notes 161
Works Cited 183
Index 193

acknowledgments
To Nicholas Brown, Jennifer Ashton, Joshua Clover, Peter
Coviello, and Walter Benn Michaels; to Sam Cohen, Ranjit
Arab, and Meredith Stabel at the University of Iowa Press;
and to my friends, family, colleagues, and comrades, Vin,
Lisa, Whitman, and Everson Adiutori, Nicole Aschoff, Marc
Baez, Dr. Guada Bastos, Brent Ryan Bellamy, Ryan Brooks,
Karen Cralli, Angela Dancey, Currey Dorris, Ashleigh Evans,
Julie Fiorelli, Kevin Floyd, Shawn Gude, Mary Hale, Tenney
Hammond, all six Kidwells, Laura Krughoff, Lindsay Marshall,
Megan McLeod, Matt Moraghan, P iper- Lori Parker, Nanette
Perez, Jon, Ursula, and Debbie Phillis, Chris Rhodes, Neri
Sandoval, Emilio Sauri, Davis Smith-B recheisen, Josh and
Shannon Stephany- Hammond, Bhaskar Sunkara, and Micah
Uetricht: thanks, and I’ll shut up about Pound now.
And Richard, how could I do anything at a ll— let alone
anything this good— without you?