The Poetics of Scale: From Apollinaire to Big Data

Poets have been drawn to the poem as a data-handling mechanism, mediating between aesthetics and infrastructure, language and technology since the twentieth century. Conrad Steel's The Poetics of Scale explores how poetry has been bound with our changing logistics of macroscale representation, dating back to Guillaume Apollinaire's invention of a new mode of poetry in Paris before the First World War. It shows how Apollinaire's work became a vital source of inspiration for American poets through the era of intensive American economic expansion and up to the present day, threading together his work with three of his American successors.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 316 pages
Publication date: 29 February 2024
Publisher: University of Iowa Press

Since the dawn of the twentieth century, poets have been irresistibly drawn to the image of the poem as a kind of data-handling, a way of mediating between the divergent scales of aesthetics and infrastructure, language and technology. Conrad Steel demonstrates how the history of poetry, with its particular formal affordances, and the particular hopes and fears we invest it with, has always been bound with our changing logistics of macroscale representation. This history takes us back to the years before the First World War in Paris, where the poet Guillaume Apollinaire claimed to have invented a new mode of poetry large enough to take on the challenges of the coming twentieth century.

The Poetics of Scale follows Apollinaire's ideas across the Atlantic and examines how and why his work became such a vital source of inspiration for American poets through the era of intensive American economic expansion and up to the present day. Threading together Apollinaire's work in the 1910s with three of his American successors—Louis Zukofsky in the 1930s, Allen Ginsberg in the 1950s, and Alice Notley from the 1970s onward—it shows how poetry as a cultural technique became the crucial test case for the scale of our collective imagination.

The Poetics of Scale is a groundbreaking exploration of the relationship between poetry and the larger cultural landscape, offering a fresh perspective on the role of poetry in shaping our understanding of the world. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the power of language and the creative potential of poetry to transcend boundaries and inspire new ways of thinking.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781609389314