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Readers: Who Reads Modern Poetry?

Virtanen, Juha (2020) Readers: Who Reads Modern Poetry? In: Gortschacher, Wolfgang and Malcom, David, eds. A Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Poetry, 1960 - 2015. Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture . Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 87-97. ISBN 978-1-118-84325-3. E-ISBN 978-1-118-84321-5. (doi:10.1002/9781118843215.ch2a.4) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:99711)

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https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118843215.ch2a.4

Abstract

This chapter examines the question of readership for modern poetry. It will outline a brief historical narrative of modern poetry and its readership, with examples from the 1960s, 1970s, 1990s and the twenty-first century. These narratives, the chapter will demonstrate, often involve a dichotomous division between “accessible” “mainstream” poetry and the “difficult” or “inaccessible” poetics of the avant-garde. In an effort to contest the underlying assumptions of these dichotomies, the chapter will outline alternative configurations of accessibility, drawing upon the Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory and the scholarly work of Robert Sheppard and Peter Middleton. These re-configurations are then exemplified further via a brief analysis of the readerly processes in Allen Fisher’s poetry and poetics. Finally, the chapter will conclude with quantitative observations about the current distribution of poetry publications.

Item Type: Book section
DOI/Identification number: 10.1002/9781118843215.ch2a.4
Uncontrolled keywords: readership; accessibility; difficulty; Adorno; Allen Fisher
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN80 Criticism
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN441 Literary History
P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of English
Depositing User: Juha Virtanen
Date Deposited: 26 Jan 2023 11:55 UTC
Last Modified: 27 Jan 2023 09:29 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/99711 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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