![]() ![]() When we think systemically, we can link one instance of suffering to our social whole, and the racist, misogynist, transphobic, capitalist system that shapes our lives. Not only does articulating this mode of thought contextualize lyric subject experimentation as part of a wider socio-cultural trend, it also displays an impasse in contemporary political struggle. ![]() ![]() ![]() These all display something crucial about twenty-first century political thought: a tendency to conflate, confuse, and equate the individual political subject with the wider system to which s/he/they are joined. I argue that we can best understand the book's lyric project by anchoring it in one of the book's images, and reading both in conjunction with a genre with a related social project, the contemporary infographic map of the United States. Claudia Rankine's 2004 poem Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric is often hailed as experimental, combining documentary photographs, custom-made graphics, and written-word poetry. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |