Poetry in General: How a Literary Form Became Public by Keegan Cook Finberg

Poetry in General: How a Literary Form Became Public

$140.00
$140.00
Skip to product information
Poetry in General: How a Literary Form Became Public by Keegan Cook Finberg
  • Poetry in General: How a Literary Form Became Public by Keegan Cook Finberg
Poetry in General: How a Literary Form Became Public

Columbia University Press

Poetry in General: How a Literary Form Became Public

by Keegan Cook Finberg

$140.00
$140.00

Members save $14.00. Learn more about Membership »

Ready to ship in 3 - 5 days

In the second half of the twentieth century, poetry leapt out of books and became an interdisciplinary public form. Poetry entered bureaucratic systems of organization like index card catalogues; it pushed the boundaries of privately owned public parks. Keegan Cook Finberg argues that poetry became an increasingly capacious force during this period because it could speak directly to the degradation of the social-democratic notion of the public.

Poetry in General explores how poets expanded their practice into the realms of politics, work, and everyday life from 1960 to the present, from the apex of the welfare state to an era of privatization and austerity. It considers a compelling array of figures--including Yoko Ono, George Brecht, Frank O'Hara, Amiri Baraka, Bernadette Mayer, Eleanor Antin, Adrian Piper, and M. NourbeSe Philip--whose works draw on conceptual techniques to transform official documents and spaces. Finberg shows how these public texts expose the mechanisms of the neoliberal consensus about work and leisure, the state's facilitation of capitalism, and enduring racial and gender inequities. She also provides politically charged ways to interpret and critique racial capitalism, antiabortion legislation, and mass debt. A new literary and institutional history of postwar poetics, this book shows how poetic experiments address the privatization of collective life and rethink the category of the public.
Book Details
Publisher:
Columbia University Press
ISBN:
9780231219211
Binding:
Hardcover
Pages:
264
Authors:
Keegan Cook Finberg
Published Date:
2025-11-04
Language:
English
Shipping

Ships directly to you from our US distribution partner. US delivery only.

This title is printed to order. Printing takes 3–5 days before it ships.

Estimated total time for this book on its own:

  • Economy 6–13 days
  • Expedited 5–10 days
  • Priority 4–9 days

Orders with more than one book may arrive in separate deliveries. Pre-orders always ship separately once the book is released.
Returns

We offer a 30-day return policy, which means you have 30 days after receiving your item to request a return. To be eligible for a return, your item must be in the same condition that you received it: new, unworn or unused, and in its original packaging. See details on our Return & Refund policy.

See more

All Poetry Free Shipping Poetry Books for Black Friday

About Keegan Cook Finberg

Keegan Cook Finberg holds a PhD and an MA in literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has taught English at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Poetry in General: How a Literary Form Became Public, published by Columbia University Press in 2025 and offered here in hardcover and paperback, is a work of literary criticism rather than a collection: it traces how the form came to be read in public. Her own poetry is the chapbook The Thought of Preservation, which came from Ursus Americanus Press in 2019.

If this information requires correction, please contact info@thepoetryshop.com.

You may also like

If any information on The Poetry Shop contains an error that requires correction, please contact info@thepoetryshop.com