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by Juliana Spahr
Lyric meditations on writing poetry in a time of ecological crisis and right wing populism.
During the time of an increasingly powerful alt-right which was also the time when species extinction was ever increasing, Juliana Spahr sat down to read Brecht. She was looking for an answer to Brecht's question about the dark times, about whether there will also be singing during the dark times. The answer that Brecht provides is that yes, that poets will sing of the dark times. In the six ars poeticas that Spahr writes, she sings of the dark times but also of coral, the pop song's possible liberation, and the love of comrades. She writes not only of the rich history of what politics and poetry have done with each other, but what they might yet do together.
Pulitzer Prize, 2026
"Juliana Spahr's Ars Poeticas (Wesleyan Univ., Feb.) ask how one might write in troubled times. (Spahr started by reading Brecht.)" ―Library Journal
"Throughout Ars Poeticas, Spahr unpacks the steadily worsening threats of climate change and right-wing populism with humility and artistry. We can't help but wonder what poetry could ever add to the efforts to address them, if not just more lines of poetry. With Ars Poeticas, the answer, despite Spahr's reservations, is a tremendous amount." ―The Washington Post
This information about Ars Poeticas (Wesleyan Poetry Series) was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Juliana Spahr is a writer and scholar of literature. Her most recent book of poetry is That Winter the Wolf Came (2015).
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