Counterclaims

". . . this project seeks not to take a position on, but to further an ongoing process of, poetics. It seeks not to assert a claim but to perform a heuristic, not to settle on one aesthetic or one institutional arrangement for poetry, but to fulfill a principle of continuing dialogue and distributed engagement." In Counterclaims, renowned poet H. L. Hix has amassed the responses of more than one hundred and fifty of his fellow writers, scholars, and artists to a singular problem, simultaneously a set of questions and a call-to-arms: whether the old truths inherent in 20th-century poetics can still be adhered to today, or whether new truths might take their place and what might they be? The answers collected in this volume from many of the greatest luminaries of their generation, writers young and old, from diverse backgrounds and cultures, form the basis of a new conversation; a step forward, not toward any one monolithic thesis or manifesto, but toward a new and ever adapting notion of poetry.