Activist Poetics
Anarchy in the Avon Valley
Distributed for Liverpool University Press
John Kinsella is known internationally as the acclaimed author of more than thirty books of poetry and prose, but in tandem with—and often through—those creative works, Kinsella is also a prominent political activist. In this collection of essays, he explores anarchism, veganism, pacifism, and ecological poetics and makes a compelling argument for poetry as a vital form of resistance to a variety of social and ethical ills. Building on his own earlier notion of "linguistic disobedience," he analyzes his poetry and prose in the context of resistance. For Kinsella, all poetry is a call to action, and Activist Poetics reads like a lively manifesto for it to escape the aesthetic vacuum and enter the real world.
“John Kinsella is a major poet for whom poetry is never enough. Pacifist, vegan, ecological campaigner, he argues passionately for the writer to engage with the world. Not since Shelley has there been such radical, ethically driven criticism. The verbal intelligence at work is as acute as the scope is large. An exhilarating constellation of interview, essay, polemic, lecture, memoir, apologia, and verse, Activist Poetics will be eagerly read by anyone interested in what writing can do.”
Literature and Literary Criticism: Poetry
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