A poetics of impasse in modern and contemporary American poetry

Hart Crane and the impasse of formalism.

Laura Riding's essentialism and the absent muse.

Gertrude Stein and self-advertisement.

"Returning to bloom": John Ashbery's critique of Harold Bloom.

"Grandmothers and hunters": Ronald Johnson and feminine tradition.

The stutter in the text: editing and historical authority in the poetry of Susan Howe.

Local vocals: Hawaiʻi's pidgin literature, performance, and post-coloniality.

Of time and Charles Bernstein's lines: a poetics of fashion statements.

Coda: "Word trade center": writing after 9/11.