I had never thought of contemporary poetry as being like an octopus before, but the following, from a review of Make It the Same in Choice, made me think again: Edmond . . . provides a fascinating look at what poetry is becoming in the 21st century: it is subversive and regenerating like the tendrils […]
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LRO reviews Make It the Same
Make It the Same: Poetry in the age of global media is an important, fascinating and timely discussion of poetry of the iterative turn. Via a finely curated selection of poets and their work, Jacob Edmond compares the ideas ‘original’ and ‘copy’, offering insight into the iterative work of particular socio-geographical contexts that highlight, but […]
Verse Versus Virus
“Language is a virus from outer space,” wrote William Burroughs. It might seem wildly inappropriate to invoke this bizarre statement at a time when a real virus is infecting and killing thousands worldwide, upending the everyday lives of millions, and unsettling the global economy. And yet Burroughs gets at something important: certain ways of using […]
A tribute to Sean Bonney
With the world’s attention turned to the Covid-19 virus and to the mass sickness and death that it is causing and has the potential to cause, I want to pause briefly to dwell on the singularity of each life and in particular the life of the poet Sean Bonney, who died in November last year. […]
Kamau Brathwaite, 1930–2020
I am stunned and saddened to hear of the passing of the great Barbadian poet and historian Kamau Brathwaite. His work was pivotal to Make It the Same, and it continues to shape and change the way I think about poetry, media, culture, globalization, colonialism, imperialism, and history. Despite the recognition that his work received […]
Svend Erik Larsen reviews Make It the Same
Svend Erik Larsen has just published his review of Make It the Same: Poetry in the Age of Global Media in Orbis Litterarum. He begins the review by asking: Can extremely formal contemporary poetry, working with the minute material details of language, function as a cultural intervention addressing such burning issues as race, gender, migration […]
Make It the Same at the Kelly Writers House
The wonderful people at the Kelly Writers House have posted a video of last Wednesday’s lunchtime discussion of the Make It the Same with Josephine Park and Kevin Platt. I’m very grateful to them both for an excellent dialogue and to Al Filreis, Jessica Lowenthal, and the rest of the Kelly Writers House team at […]
Upcoming US talks on Make It the Same: Poetry in the Age of Global Media
Over the next couple of weeks, I’m giving a number of talks related to Make It the Same in various US cities, including Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. If you happen to be nearby, I’d love to see you there. Here are the details: Monday, November 18, 5 to 6:30pm, Barker […]
“a supremely creative and passionate scholarly approach”: Times Higher Ed. on Make It the Same
Martin Dyar has reviewed Make It the Same for Times Higher Education. The review begins: At first glance, the poetry that Jacob Edmond has written about in Make It the Same could appear to be precariously inclined towards abstruseness. And a significant number of the poets whose work is explored here have not been previously granted […]
“a radical contribution to poetry studies”: LARB reviews Make It the Same
The Los Angeles Review of Books has just published Walt Hunter’s review of Make It the Same. The review concludes: Edmond’s book makes a radical contribution to poetry studies. For Edmond, the agent of poetic change is not the individual, but rather the shifting collaboration between technology and politics that produces different kinds of copies. […]
