The Skin of Meaning

Collected Literary Essays and Talks

Subjects: Literary Studies, Poetry and Poetry Criticism, Sexuality Studies
Hardcover : 9780472072965, 192 pages, 3 illustrations, 5.375 x 8, February 2016
Paperback : 9780472052967, 192 pages, 3 illustrations, 5.375 x 8, February 2016
Ebook : 9780472121564, 192 pages, 3 illustrations, February 2016
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Explores the way poetry can combine social awareness and lyric vision
 

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Description

A volume in the Poets on Poetry series, which collects critical works by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation.
In The Skin of Meaning, Aaron Shurin has collected thirty years’ worth of his provocative essays. Fueled by gender and queer studies and combined with radical traditions in poetry, Shurin’s essays combine a highly personal and lyrical vision with a trenchant social analysis of poetry’s possibilities. Whether he’s examining innovations in poetic form, analyzing the gestures of drag queens, or dissecting the language of AIDS, Shurin’s writing is evocative, his investigations rigorous, and his point of view unabashed.
Shurin’s poetic practice braids together many strands in contemporary, innovative writing, from the San Francisco Renaissance to Language Poetry and New Narrative Writing. His mentorships with Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov; his studies at New College of California, where he was the first graduate of the epochal Poetics Program; and his years of teaching writing provide a rich background for these essays. San Francisco provides the color and context for formulations of “prosody now,” propositions of textual collage, and theories of radical narrativity, while the heart of the book searches through the dire years of the AIDS epidemic to uncover poetic meaning, and “make the heroes heroes.”

Aaron Shurin is Professor Emeritus and former Director of the MFA program at the University of San Francisco. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including Citizen (2011), King of Shadows (2008), and Involuntary Lyrics (2005). His honors and awards include the Gertrude Stein Award, the Bay Area Art Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council.

Read: Aaron Shurin reviewed in Jacket2 (Link) | 3/13/2017  Read: Aaron Shurin interviewed for the Poetry Foundation (Link) | 11/1/2016  Watch: Aaron Shurin speaks at an SVA NYC Art Writing Program event (Link) | 4/1/2016