A01=Sarah Ehlers
African American poetry
anti-imperialist literature
antifascist literature
Author_Sarah Ehlers
ballad
Ben Maddow (David Wolff)
Category=DCF
Category=DSC
Category=NHK
children's poetry
communism and literature in the United States
documentary poetry
Edwin Rolfe
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eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=0
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_poetry
Ezra Pound
Genevieve Taggard
genre theory
Great Depression in the United States
history and criticism of American poetry
history and criticism of lyric poetry
history of poetics
innovative writing
Jacques Roumain
James Agee
Jewish American poetry
Kenneth Fearing
Langston Hughes
left cultures of translation
left song culture
literature and mass media
literature and photography
Martha Millet
modernism
Muriel Rukeyser
politics and literature
proletarian literature
radicalism in the United States
social movements in the United States
social problems in literature
U.S. occupation of Haiti
voice in poetry
women's poetry
Product details
- ISBN 9781469651286
- Weight: 465g
- Dimensions: 155 x 233mm
- Publication Date: 10 Jun 2019
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In this incisive study, Sarah Ehlers returns to the Depression-era United States in order to unsettle longstanding ideas about poetry and emerging approaches to poetics. By bringing to light a range of archival materials and theories about poetry that emerged on the 1930s left, Ehlers reimagines the historical formation of modern poetics. Offering new and challenging readings of prominent figures such as Langston Hughes and Muriel Rukeyser, and uncovering the contributions of lesser-known writers such as Jacques Roumain, Genevieve Taggard, and Martha Millet, Ehlers illuminates an aesthetically and geographically diverse matrix of schools and movements. Resisting the dismissal of thirties left writing as mere propaganda, the book reveals how communist-affiliated poets experimented with poetic modes—such as lyric and documentary—and genres, including songs, ballads, and nursery rhymes in ways that challenged existing frameworks for understanding the relationships among poetic form, political commitment, and historical transformation. As Ehlers shows, Depression left movements and their international connections are crucial for understanding both the history of modern poetry and the role of poetic thought in conceptualizing historical change.
Sarah Ehlers is assistant professor of English at the University of Houston.
