Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series

Karin Gottshall, Department of English and American Literatures, will be speaking on “The New Political Poetry in America”.

This lecture will investigate the ways contemporary lyric poets are waking up to and finding means of addressing the political in their poems. While there is a long tradition of political poetry in our country, in recent decades it has been largely absent from mainstream publishing—a deficit that has led many to question, rightfully, the relevance of poetry in a world so troubled by injustice and instability. We¹ll look at the fluency American poets working today seem to be finding around race, gender, and class inequalities, among other politically charged topics, and the evolving technologies that are allowing poetry to find a “new” (though actually quite ancient) function as a kind of front-line reportage of the troubles of our time.