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About this book
Today's Latino poetry scene is incredibly vibrant. With original interviews, this is the first meditation on the thematic features of such poetry. Looking at how Julia Alvarez, Rhina Espaillat, Rafael Campo, and C. Dale Young use structures such as meter, rhyme, and line break, this study identifies a poetics of formalist Latino poetry.
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Reviews
"Aldama's new book marks a milestone in Latino Poetry studies. His alert and careful exploration of four formalist authors reveals the true diversity of contemporary Latino poetry. This fascinating book not only corrects a long-standing critical oversight; it also shows how four ambitious authors have explored the poetic riches of both the English and Spanish traditions to create a compelling new Latino American voice." - Dana Gioia, author of Can Poetry Matter?, poet, and former Chairman of the NEA
"Here is a pioneering study of four Latino poets who have chosen to express their distinctly modern-day concerns within traditional English metrical forms. Combining subtle close readings of representative lyrics with interviews of their creators, Aldama turns a revealing spotlight on a unique body of contemporary writing." - Herbert Lindenberger, Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities Emeritus, Stanford University, USA"In a world of digital and social media, detaching us, it would seem, from the material word, Aldama restores the sheer heart of poetry. Brilliantly, creatively, and with no apologies, he guides us through the 'story,' the metrical rhythms, and segmentation (where lines are cut) in four Latino poets - two feminists and two gay - to show us how they make new our perception, thought, and feeling about the twenty-first century world we inhabit." - Marta E. Sánchez, Professor of Transborder Studies, Arizona State University, USA and author of Contemporary Chicana Poetry
'''The pleasure of form is that it's a kind of play,' says one poet. Another: 'I often begin with a phrase, a grouping of words that have become incantatory ' A third, on a scrap of language: 'I pick at it over time and eventually I come up with a line.' And the fourth, in talking about a successful poem: 'Its sounds please the ear.' So what we have here, where Latino poetics is concerned, is a book-length study that refreshingly privileges how poems are made, and not poems-as-props for some pre-determined thesis. These interviews are companion to Aldama's trove of close readings over the course of these four engaging studies. Formal Matters in Contemporary Latino Poetry marks a new threshold in the study of one of American poetry's most vital, yet under-examined strands." - Francisco Aragón, editor of The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry"With a keen critical eye Aldama doesn't so much interpret poems as he inhabits them, bringing to dazzling light the pleasure in actively participating with the forms and functions of carefully crafted language and lines. His magnificent book follows a unique and intuitive argument: that segmentivity, a quality endemic to both modern verse and Latino identity, illuminates how poetics and identity mutually arrange one another." - David A. Colón, Assistant Professor,Texas Christian University, USA, poet, and author of The Lost Men'Aldama performs a thoughtful revision of existing critical vocabularies, urging us beyond purely sociohistorical or discursive approaches to Latino/a poetry, and towards a renewed engagement with aesthetics. Fusing close readings with cultural and theoretical reflections, Formal Matters in Contemporary Latino Poetry opens up challenging and largely unexplored lines of inquiry. There is nothing pro forma here, except in the hortatory sense.' - Urayoán Noel, Poet and Professor, University at Albany, SUNY
About the author
Frederick Luis Aldama is Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor of English and Founder and Director of LASER/Latino & Latin American Space for Enrichment Research at The Ohio State University, USA. He is the author of 13 books, including: Your Brain on Latino Comics: From Gus Arriola to Los Bros Hernande, The Routledge Concise History of Latino/a Literature , and ¡Muy Pop!: Conversations on Latino Pop Culture (co-authored with Ilan Stavans).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Formal Matters in Contemporary Latino Poetry
Authors: Frederick Luis Aldama
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230391642
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature Collection, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2013
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-230-39163-5Published: 29 July 2013
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-35166-4Published: 29 July 2013
eBook ISBN: 978-0-230-39164-2Published: 26 January 2016
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 207
Topics: Poetry and Poetics, Twentieth-Century Literature, Latin American Culture, North American Literature