Poetics of Process

This article explores a poetics of process, beginning with Whitman’s first version of Leaves of Grass (1855), which presents a consciousness unfolding in present-tense becoming, enhanced through ellipses. The widespread use of ellipses, which Whitman later edited out, embodies an experiential dynamism via a porous text that denotes a processing consciousness. The article then traces a poetics of process through Adrienne Rich’s “Midnight Salvage.” Here, Rich deploys creative syntax and disrupted genre to embed process into her poetic form. Unlike Whitman, Rich’s becoming is less embrace than flight. The essay then moves to the emerging poetries of Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas (2017) and Chen Chen’s Your Emergency Contact Has an Emergency (2022). Their self-conscious creativity performs the process of poem-making on the surface level of the poem, which creates an intimate sharing with the reader, like Whitman and Rich, though in a process of reckoning and reevaluation more than action and experiencing. Throughout, a poetics of process alters form to embody process, invigorating both poetic form and subject matter with dynamic aliveness

Action (physics) · Chen · Consciousness · Creativity · Dynamism · Poetics · Poetry · Artistic and Creative Research · Poetry Analysis and Criticism · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism

• Try Telling Yourself / You Are Not Accountable”

  Maggie Rehm•Women s Studies•2017

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