Crisis and contemporary poetry
By: edited by Anne Karhio, Sean Crosson, Charles I. Armstrong
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 260
ISBN-13: 9780230247246
Subjects: Crises in literature; Literature and history; English poetry; Politics and literature; History and criticism; History
Description: This collection of essays addresses poetic and critical responses to the various crises encountered by contemporary writers and our society. The essays included discuss a range of issues from the holocaust, the Troubles in Northern Ireland and their aftermath and the war on terror to the ecological crisis, poetry's relationship to place and questions of cultural and national identity. What are the means available to poetry to address the various crises it faces, and how can both poets and critics meet the challenges posed by society and the literary community? How can poetry justify its own role as a meaningful form of cultural and artistic practice? The volume focuses on poetry from Britain, Ireland and the US, and many of the poets discussed in this volume are among the most acclaimed contemporary writers, including for example Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Louise Gluck and Alice Oswald.