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Conclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2020

Eric Falci
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Summary

One of the underlying arguments of this book is that poetry’s value is bound up in its “negative capability,” in its presentation of complexity. It isn’t that the ambiguity or uncertainty embedded in a poem is part of some devious machination on the part of the poet, but that poetry is founded in a fissure, as the previous chapter show in a variety of ways. This argument comes under heavy pressure in a time of global political and ecological crisis. Never has it been more stupifyingly clear that “poetry makes nothing happen,” as Auden wrote. And never have the deep foundations of poetry seemed so precarious. The importance of nature for poetry is so deep as to be nearly unnoticeable, not only poetry’s reliance on the ideologies of the pastoral, but also poetry’s leveraging its own significance by way of the sublimity of the natural world. What happens when nature is under planetary threat? What is the status of a nature poem well after the death of nature? How might we understand poetry within the context of ongoing ecological devastation? This chapter considers these questions through reading of poems by Stephanie Strickland and Nick Montfort, Ed Roberson, and Juliana Spahr.

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The Value of Poetry , pp. 156 - 179
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Conclusion
  • Eric Falci, University of California, Berkeley
  • Book: The Value of Poetry
  • Online publication: 20 November 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108676915.006
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  • Conclusion
  • Eric Falci, University of California, Berkeley
  • Book: The Value of Poetry
  • Online publication: 20 November 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108676915.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • Eric Falci, University of California, Berkeley
  • Book: The Value of Poetry
  • Online publication: 20 November 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108676915.006
Available formats
×