Reading the Modernist Long Poem: John Cage, Charles Olson and the Indeterminacy of Longform Poetics

Product Description

How do readers approach the enigmatic and unnavigable modernist long poem? Taking as the form's exemplars the highly influential but critically contentious poetries of John Cage and Charles Olson, this book considers indeterminacy – the fundamental feature of the long poem – by way of its analogues in musicology, mycology, cybernetics and philosophy. It addresses features of these works that figure broadly in the long poem tradition, such as listing, typography, archives, mediation and mereology, while articulating how both poets broke with the longform poetic traditions of the early 1900s. Brendan C. Gillott argues for Cage's and Olson's centrality to these traditions – in developing, critiquing and innovating on the longform poetics of the past, their work revolutionized the longform poetry of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Review

“Reading the Modernist Long Poem provides a valuable consideration of longform and indeterminate poetry of the postwar period. Gillott's focus on reading protocols for John Cage and Charles Olson opens new territory for our understanding of these writers and their contemporaries.” ―Peter Jaeger, Professor of Poetics, University of Roehampton, UK, and author of Midamble (2018)

“An exceptionally lucid and theoretically well informed study of the long poem, which Gillott puts in conversation with Marjorie Perloff's 'Other Tradition', with Pound, Stein and Beckett. Gillott's special interest is in indeterminacy as it operates in, and is generated by, long forms, something that he studies with great clarity and richness in the contexts of John Cage and Charles Olson, whose works are discussed philosophically, critically, culturally and historically. This is a book of major importance for anyone interested in contemporary poetry and the 'longform'.” ―Herman Rapaport, Reynolds Professor of English, Wake Forest University, USA, and author of The Literary Theory Toolkit (2011)

“In this brilliant study, Brendan Gillott comprehensively recalibrates our ways of reading two of the most challenging and generative long poems of the past century: The Maximus Poems of Charles Olson and John Cage's I-VI. By following out all the ramifications of indeterminacy for the making and receiving of these works, Gillott demonstrates the artistic, philosophical and basic human demands and opportunities these books place before their writers and readers. Not just a theoretical watchword, "indeterminacy" is here made into a subtle tool for reckoning the vital stakes in the modern long poem.” ―Stephen Fredman, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Notre Dame, and author of American Poetry as Transactional Art (2020)

“Brendan Gillott wonderfully adumbrates the centrality of indeterminacy in the works of John Cage and – more surprisingly – Charles Olson. By showing how structures and strategies of indeterminacy are not merely fundamental to Olson and Cage's compositional practices, but are necessary elements of readers' approaches to their work, Gillott sets out a new and provocative framework for reading these writers' important long poems.” ―Mark Scroggins, Professor of English (Emeritus), Florida Atlantic University, USA, and author of Intricate Thicket: Reading Late Modernist Poetries (2015)

About the Author

Brendan C. Gillott is Praeceptor in English at Corpus Christi College at the University of Cambridge, UK.