CFP: American Poetry & Poetics, 2008–2025
Annulet seeks proposals for a Spring 2025 folio: “American Poetry & Poetics, 2008–2025”
The purpose of this folio is both open and direct: what is the history of American poetry and poetics from 2008 until the present? How might we begin to attend to the past seventeen years of influences and trends in poetics, or critical theory’s application to or interpretation of poetry? Have there been significant publishing outlets or networks, or noteworthy affects and affinities particular to this time period? What are the holdovers from previous aesthetic groupings or movements, or how are these legacies still operative or intact? Which figures have defined their respective traditions, or their own oeuvres? Whose influence do you suggest will become increasingly ascendant? How might we characterize the relationship between graduate writing programs and the poets or poetics they produce? Which forms of poetics, practices, or methods, like documentary poetics, translation, or archival study, are cresting or have waned? Are poetry communities located in specific places, or online, or both—and how, or in whose work, might we track their range? How different might today’s historicization be from previous generations’ embrace or avoidance of such projects? What channels of contemporary poetics have been visible but unnamed, or are deliberately invisible, unassimilable, or fugitive, resistant to commodification? Which cultural, economic, or political events in poetry’s recent history have altered the timeline? To which forms, poets, or poetic modes have we said goodbye? What or who might be taking their place? Why haven’t we answered these questions yet, or in what forms (such as anthologies) or disciplines are these attempts legible, limited, or have already taken place? Can it be said that there are generational traits, or intergenerational aesthetic links, that have developed in the past decade and a half? What presses, organizations, journals, conferences, cohorts or coteries, or other social forms and solidarities will or should define the post-recession years until today? When you look into the pool of current poetics, what do you see? What are the features of a poet’s life in the present? Why might or should an overall project of historicization fail?
In sum: what inquiries, influences, or interventions in American poetry & poetics comprise or might define 2008–2025?
You may address any of these above questions, choose a timeframe or year from within this suggested period, or answer your own related question as you see fit. Essays may be co-authored or written as a group or collective. “American” is understood here as being rooted in the geographic area of the Americas, and in critical relationship to the U.S. Proposed essays need not follow Annulet’s category-specific guidelines.
Send your 250–750 word proposals for essays between 1500–7500 words to annuletpoetics@gmail.com by September 1st, 2024. Proposals will receive a response by September 15th, 2024, and first drafts should be ready by January 15th, 2025. Questions may be directed to Annulet’s editor, Alicia Wright, at the same address.
The purpose of this folio is both open and direct: what is the history of American poetry and poetics from 2008 until the present? How might we begin to attend to the past seventeen years of influences and trends in poetics, or critical theory’s application to or interpretation of poetry? Have there been significant publishing outlets or networks, or noteworthy affects and affinities particular to this time period? What are the holdovers from previous aesthetic groupings or movements, or how are these legacies still operative or intact? Which figures have defined their respective traditions, or their own oeuvres? Whose influence do you suggest will become increasingly ascendant? How might we characterize the relationship between graduate writing programs and the poets or poetics they produce? Which forms of poetics, practices, or methods, like documentary poetics, translation, or archival study, are cresting or have waned? Are poetry communities located in specific places, or online, or both—and how, or in whose work, might we track their range? How different might today’s historicization be from previous generations’ embrace or avoidance of such projects? What channels of contemporary poetics have been visible but unnamed, or are deliberately invisible, unassimilable, or fugitive, resistant to commodification? Which cultural, economic, or political events in poetry’s recent history have altered the timeline? To which forms, poets, or poetic modes have we said goodbye? What or who might be taking their place? Why haven’t we answered these questions yet, or in what forms (such as anthologies) or disciplines are these attempts legible, limited, or have already taken place? Can it be said that there are generational traits, or intergenerational aesthetic links, that have developed in the past decade and a half? What presses, organizations, journals, conferences, cohorts or coteries, or other social forms and solidarities will or should define the post-recession years until today? When you look into the pool of current poetics, what do you see? What are the features of a poet’s life in the present? Why might or should an overall project of historicization fail?
In sum: what inquiries, influences, or interventions in American poetry & poetics comprise or might define 2008–2025?
You may address any of these above questions, choose a timeframe or year from within this suggested period, or answer your own related question as you see fit. Essays may be co-authored or written as a group or collective. “American” is understood here as being rooted in the geographic area of the Americas, and in critical relationship to the U.S. Proposed essays need not follow Annulet’s category-specific guidelines.
Send your 250–750 word proposals for essays between 1500–7500 words to annuletpoetics@gmail.com by September 1st, 2024. Proposals will receive a response by September 15th, 2024, and first drafts should be ready by January 15th, 2025. Questions may be directed to Annulet’s editor, Alicia Wright, at the same address.