Four Lectures

Four Lectures by Lisa Jarnot is the seventh book in the Bagley Wright Lecture Series, comprising autobiographical essays that form an intimate, uncompromising, and generous glimpse into a remarkable life in poetry.

Across the lectures, or talks, given between October of 2020 and December of 2021, Jarnot examines what it means to be a woman in a male-centered experimental tradition, to have white privilege, and to write poetry. With colloquial ease and wit, Jarnot investigates the generative tensions at the intersections of traditional and experimental forms, develops relationships between deep gossip and ecstatic connectedness, and considers the prophetic tradition in American poetry as inflected through counter-cultural spirituality. Ultimately, Jarnot presents poetry as a calling, asking us to consider the means by which poets can envision a new heaven and a new earth.