Conceptual Poetry, Nonconceptual Poetry, Postconceptual Poetry

Abstract

'In the Anthropocene, collective human action has acquired the scale of a planetary geological force. The Anthropocene concept impels the rethinking of many assumptions and ideas that have long been foundational for humanities disciplines. These include some of Western philosophy's central aesthetic categories, and it is here that my essay seeks to intervene. What critical purchase does the literature of ideas offer in the Anthropocene? How might the Anthropocene impel us to think differently about literature? I address these questions by examining a contemporary literary movement, conceptual poetry, which formulates and defends its practices in terms of their relation to ideas.'