Discrepant engagement
Subtitle: dissonance, cross-culturality, and experimental writing
By: Nathaniel Mackey.
Series: Cambridge studies in American literature and culture ;; 71
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1993
Place of publication: Cambridge [England]; New York, NY, USA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 313
Subjects: American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; American literature -- African American authors -- History and criticism.; Caribbean literature (English) -- Black authors -- History and criticism.; West Indian literature (English) -- Black authors -- History and criticism.; Literature, Experimental -- English-speaking countries -- History and criticism.; African Americans -- Intellectual life -- 20th century.; Literature and society -- English-speaking countries.; African Americans in literature.; Blacks in literature.
Description: Discrepant Engagement addresses work by a number of authors not normally grouped under a common rubric - black writers from the United States and the Caribbean and the so-called Black Mountain poets: Amiri Baraka, Clarence Major, Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, Charles Olson, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Wilson Harris, and others. Nathaniel Mackey examines the ways in which the experimental aspects of their work advance a critique of the assumptions that underlie conventional perceptions and practice.

Mackey, arguing that the work of these writers engages the discrepancy between presumed norms and qualities of experience that such norms fail to accommodate, highlights their valorization of dissonance, divergence, and formal disruption. He advances a cross-cultural mix that is uncommon in studies of experimental writing, frequently bringing the works and ideas of the authors it addresses into dialogue and juxtaposition with one another.

And he shows that parallels, counterpoint, and relevance to one another exist among writers otherwise separated by ethnic and regional boundaries.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 287-304) and index.