Dialogues on Poetry

Abstract

This book's inquiry into contemporary poetry takes two directions. The first direction leads to several close examinations of digital, multi-modal and performative poetry, and how perspectives or perhaps just an awareness of a new media landscape recondition our understanding of an old literary genre. The second direction expands into considerations of contextual theories of affect and atmosphere, to materiality studies and towards the heterogenic field of politics, for example feminism, minority studies, digital and environmental humanities or cosmopolitanism. Hence, the question the articles in this volume pose is whether this match of mediatization and new sensibilities can be seen as a major novel development in the history of poetry. With the title Dialogues on Poetry we wish to signal that the answer to this question can only be pursued through the ongoing process involved in defining, discussing and describing how poetry responds to the substantial changes of our media-saturated circumstances and environments.