NAAS-2005  -  Växjö University - May 26-29, 2005:

Poetics of nonconformity

For many groups of writers and poets, the 1950s and 60s were a period of dissent and battles with political conformity and other side effects of apparently universal socio-economic prosperity in the USA. Several of these groups, circles or coteries formulated explicitly non-conformist poetics, either implicitly in their writings or explicitly as manifestoes, programmes etc.

This panel invites papers that examine any aspects of these attempts at a poetics of nonconformity, but particularly papers that focus on the relationship between poetics and the materiality of text. As examples one could mention self-imposed poetic constraints relating to the length of line (cf. Ginsberg) or stanza (f. ex. use of the haiku form), strictures of stanza forms (f. ex. sestinas and villanelles of Ashbery), format of paper either in production or reproduction of the poem (f. ex. spools and loops of Kerouac and Ammons), collaborative and intergeneric art forms (f. ex. lithographic poems of O’Hara and Rivers), presence and absence of titles (cf. The New York School), disjunctive writing (f. ex. ‘enactment’ of Olson) etc.,etc.

Papers dealing with representatives of The Beat Generation, The San Francisco Renaissance, The Black Mountain Poets, The New York School, The Merry Pranksters and other circles of writers, poets and artists are welcome.

Conveners:

Bent Sørensen & Søren Hattesen Balle,
Dept. of Languages and Intercultural Studies

Aalborg University
Denmark

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Abstracts received and accepted: