Expressivity in Modern Poetry

Reviews / Votes

Immanence and expressivity are Donald Wellman's watchwords in this bold and exhilarating account of literary modernism and its legacies. Indeed, the book's intellectual range permits an "opening of the field" that reveals what Wellman calls after Deleuze and Guattari a "universe of multiple planes" and "emergent hybridities"-a literary universe, that is, which Pound, Williams, and Olson now share with major poets and writers from the Caribbean and Latin America. The sheer sweep and brio of Wellman's book make it an indispensable addition to modern literature studies. -- Peter Nicholls Don Wellman's brilliant and sure-to-be controversial Expressivity in Modern Poetry is necessary reading for anyone concerned with modern poetry. In this landmark analysis, Wellman charts a unique map of how expressivity and subjectivity are key elements in poetic discourse, and argues persuasively that we must read modern and contemporary work in the contexts of language, culture, otherness and history. Editor, translator, poet and critic, Wellman has the depth and breadth of knowledge of poetry, poetics and literary discourse to take on the ambitious task of unraveling a diverse number of poetic strands, then weaving them back together in a coherent and revealing fashion. Expressivity in Modern Poetry is a major contribution to the field of both poetry and criticism. -- Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno