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The Practice of Community: Assembling Anglophone Poetics in the Post-World War II Era STEPHEN VOYCE A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Graduate Programme in English York University Toronto, Ontario September 2009 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre refinance ISBN: 978-0-494-54112-8 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-54112-8 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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The author reserves other publication rights, and neither the dissertation nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's written permission. IV Abstract The Practice of Community: Assembling Anglophone Poetics in the Post-World War II Era The purpose of this dissertation is to trace practices of community through the organizations that authors create, the approaches to writing they jointly develop, and the poetry produced as a result of their collaborations. Although post-World War II North American and British poetry is often characterized by a shift from objective to personal sensibilities, a diverse range of poets nonetheless persist in exploring social approaches to poetic writing. Kamau Brathwaite remarks about his Arrivants Trilogy: "the poetry was saying the same thing that the Caribbean Artists Movement was doing"; Robert Duncan declares similarly that "the poem is a society in words." I argue that not only do poets address community as a matter of historical circumstance, but as a constitutive element of poetic process and the formal politics of the poem as such. Hence, this project demystifies and contrasts the communal contexts and forms of collaboration undertaken by poetic groups operating after 1945, and articulates the impact of these activities on the poetry they produce. Chapter One traces the concept of community through a number of philosophical, sociological, and political discourses intersecting with poetic practice in the West during the post-world war II period. By community, I mean the productive invention, multiplication, and arrangement of social formations; by practice, I propose a term to denote the makeshift tactics, procedures, and resources which are developed, shared, and deployed collaboratively among the group. Despite a growing suspicion of poetry's "institutionalization," I argue that poets created communal settings of experimentation in order to fuse their aesthetic activities with social and political ones. Chapters Two through Four consider specific "sites" of poetic collaboration. I begin with Black Mountain College (BMC), demonstrating that projective verse and its subsequent adaptations emerge from debates and interdisciplinary activities at the college. I argue that from its inception "field composition" was conceptualized and interpreted as a political theory, which I then read in relation to intermedial activities at the college, Olson's Maximus Poems, Creeley's For Love, and Denise Levertov and Robert Duncan's protest poetry. Chapter Three investigates the Caribbean Artists Movement's (CAM) poetics of cultural activism. I situate the poetry of Kamau Brathwaite, John La Rose, and Andrew Salkey within the context of CAM's readings, conferences, and public meetings at the West Indian Student Centre. I argue that its members advance a synthesis of Caribbean cultural traditions with new social movement theories and approaches to protest, choosing to forge a civic community of shared resources rather than a project of ethnic nationalism. Chapter Four examines the work of the Toronto Research Group (TRG), a constellation of collaborative experiments undertaken by bpNichol and Steve McCaffery, together with the Four Horsemen, and with members of the Institute for Creative Misunderstanding. Through strategies of collective authorship and the development of common "conceptual models," I claim that the group's writing techniques challenge conceptions of artistic genius and discredit proprietary notions of authorship. VI My findings reveal that these poets developed communal approaches to poetic practice that challenge one's preconceptions of authorial production and intellectual property, while emphasizing the social function of poetry. The poets in this study share a desire to link artistic community with social practices in opposition to the totalizing aspirations of political, ethnic, and cultural nationalism. Vll Acknowledgements It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge the many individuals who contributed to this project. First and foremost, I owe countless thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Marcus Boon, for his remarkable patience, generosity, expertise, and professionalism. What began years ago as a study of the manifesto genre grew into a much more ambitious investigation of community and poetics under his capable and informed direction. My committee members also deserve enormous gratitude for their tireless work. I thank Dr. Lesley Higgins for her critical acumen and meticulous care in editing. I have had the pleasure of knowing Dr. Higgins since the beginning of my PhD career; her advice and support have always proven invaluable in all aspects of my teaching and research. Art Redding's comprehensive knowledge of Cold War politics, his acute and perceptive commentary, and his collegial spirit made him an indispensable resource for this project. I would also like to thank Dr. Irene Gammel, whose course on Modernist Literary Circles provided crucial preparation for this dissertation. Several colleagues and friends deserve my sincerest gratitude for their probing insights and support. I reserve special thanks for Shannon Meek. Her wide-ranging vision, her critical eye, and her friendship have made this experience all the more meaningful. Thanks also to Nathan Brown, James Papoutsis, Kim Michasiw, Robert Stacey, Barbara Godard, Jason Demers, Christian Bok, Suzanne Zelazo, Derek Flack, Maria Brown, Ross Arthur, Lee Frew, Steve McCaffery, Andrew Griffin, Justin Voyce, David Voyce, Linda Pashak, and Jeff Bafaro. Thanks kindly to the very helpful librarians and staff members at the Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre, the Vlll Getty Research Institute, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, the George Padmore Institute, Simon Fraser Library Special Collections, the Charles Olson Research Collection at the University of Connecticut, and the Archives of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Finally, my PhD degree was supported generously by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Programme (OGS), The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and the York University Susan Mann Dissertation Scholarship. I thank them all. IX Table of Contents Abstract iv Acknowledgements vii Table of Contents ix List of Figures xi List of Abbreviations xii Introduction: The Practice of Community 1 1 Tracing Associations and Reading Micropolitically: Toward a Theory of the Poetic Assemblage 31 2 Black Mountain College: A Poetic of Local Relations 67 2.1 BMC: "Assembly Point of Acts" 67