Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to the Poem
- The Cambridge Companion to the Poem
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Ideas of the Poem
- Part II Forms of the Poem
- Part III The Poem in the World
- 13 Decolonizing the Poem
- 14 The Poem as World
- 15 The Poem and Its Audiences
- 16 The Poem in the Archive
- 17 The Poem and the Commodity
- 18 The Poem in the Digital Age
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
17 - The Poem and the Commodity
from Part III - The Poem in the World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 May 2024
- The Cambridge Companion to the Poem
- The Cambridge Companion to the Poem
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Ideas of the Poem
- Part II Forms of the Poem
- Part III The Poem in the World
- 13 Decolonizing the Poem
- 14 The Poem as World
- 15 The Poem and Its Audiences
- 16 The Poem in the Archive
- 17 The Poem and the Commodity
- 18 The Poem in the Digital Age
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
Summary
This chapter examines the relationship between poems and the commodities that structure both our intimate lives and the vast social geographies of the globe. If the content of a poem must often be discovered through interpretative work, reading between the lines of its figurative expressions and other such devices, the commodity, too, is a form of appearance which conceals its origins in labor and the exploitation of that labor. Beginning with this correspondence, and analyzing examples by Bernadette Mayer, Claude McKay, Keston Sutherland, and others, the chapter maps out several ways in which poems both present and negate the commodity. It discusses the poetic representation of labor itself as a commodity, of nonremunerative care work, of the factory and global commodity chains, and of the circulation of commodities through colonial networks. In conclusion, the chapter argues that learning to read the poem is inseparable from learning to read the commodity, for in both cases, the reader's success lies in the ability to re-suture the text to, rather than rescue it from, its worldly net.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to the Poem , pp. 283 - 299Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024