Lyric Poetry in the Age of Teleculture: Issues in Contemporary American Poetics

"The predicament of [20th century] culture," in the words of ethnologist James Clifford, is a predicament in which "reality is no longer a given, a natural, familiar environment." It is one in which "the self, cut loose from its attachments, must discover meaning where it may" 119 . Throughout much of this century, American poets have sought to "answer" this predicament, this dislocation of cultural meaning, by attempting to hear and see, and make us, readers, hear and see, our world acutely, believing that through what may be called creative acts of perception we might indeed "discover meaning" where we may. As we now approach the end of the 20th century, it is time to ask if this project has changed for poets and readers, and if so, how? Surely, the modern predicament--of rootlessness, isolation and uncertainty--has remained enmeshed in the fabric of our "post-modern" lives. Yet, American culture in the last quarter of the century has also responded in new ways; ways whose medium is the omnipresent electronic media. It is the reaction of American poets to what they generally view as the inadequacy of this telecultural response that has come to drive many of the issues in contemporary American poetics.

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