In the permanent collection : poems

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] In the Permanent Collection is a collection of lyric poetry that turns a careful and sometimes ironic eye to high and low art -- from modern abstract paintings and casts of antique statuary to reality television and mass-produced souvenirs. These objects of vision provide points of contact between subjective acts of looking and the broader conversations the poems engage, conversations about mourning customs, political discourse, and the rhetoric of romantic love. The critical introduction, entitled "Talking Back to the Masters," provides scholarly context for the poems by exploring how Elizabeth Bishop, Anne Carson, and Kevin Young use ekphrasis to reflect on artistic processes and to critique systems of representation. Their poems are best described by a new set of terms, one that deemphasizes the contest between visual and verbal arts, which has been central to previous criticism of ekphrastic literature.