Michael Davidson (poet)
Encyclopedia
Michael Davidson is an American poet.
, Cultural Studies
, Gender Studies
, and Disability Studies
.
Davidson served as the first curator of the Mandeville Department of Special Collections (UCSD) where the George Oppen
papers are stored. The Archive for New Poetry is now a major campus, community and international resource for studying post-1945 English-language poetry, and is one of the four largest American poetry collections in the U.S. The archive contains holdings that emphasize the ongoing “countertradition” in recent American writing – particularly the Objectivist poets
, the Black Mountain poets
, the San Francisco Renaissance
, the New York School
, and the Language School
.
Davidson, who recently became hearing impaired, has written extensively on disability issues, most recently "Hearing Things: The Scandal of Speech in Deaf Performance," in Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities, "Phantom Limbs: Film Noir and the Disabled Body," GLQ 9:1-2 (2003), and "Strange Blood: Hemophobia and the Unexplored Boundaries of Queer Nation," in Beyond the Boundary: Reconstructing Cultural Identity in a Multicultural Context. His essays on disability are forthcoming in Concerto for the Left Hand: Disability and the Defamiliar Body (University of Michigan). His forthcoming critical work, Outskirts of Form: Practicing Cultural Poetics, is scheduled for publication in 2011 by Wesleyan University Press.
In addition to being a widely published poet and poetry editor
(he is represented in the 2004 edition of Best American Poetry by a poem entitled "Bad Modernism"), Davidson is known for insightful literary criticism, his work in disability studies, and for the meticulous editing of the monumental George Oppen, New Collected Poems: this in which Davidson shares in the integrity of his subject.
Overview
Davidson has written eight books of poetry as well as numerous historical, cultural and critical works. He has been affiliated with the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) since 1974 and as a professor of American literature since 1988 with areas of study and research in Modern PoetryModernist poetry in English
Modernist poetry in English is generally considered to have emerged in the early years of the 20th century with the appearance of the Imagists. In common with many other modernists, these poets wrote in reaction to the perceived excesses of Victorian poetry, with its emphasis on traditional...
, Cultural Studies
Cultural studies
Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...
, Gender Studies
Gender studies
Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...
, and Disability Studies
Disability studies
Disability studies is a relatively new interdisciplinary academic field focusing on the roles of people with disabilities in history, literature, social policy, law, architecture, and other disciplines. Although it has many antecedents, disability studies began to flourish toward the end of the...
.
Davidson served as the first curator of the Mandeville Department of Special Collections (UCSD) where the George Oppen
George Oppen
George Oppen was an American poet, best known as one of the members of the Objectivist group of poets. He abandoned poetry in the 1930s for political activism, and later moved to Mexico to avoid the attentions of the House Un-American Activities Committee...
papers are stored. The Archive for New Poetry is now a major campus, community and international resource for studying post-1945 English-language poetry, and is one of the four largest American poetry collections in the U.S. The archive contains holdings that emphasize the ongoing “countertradition” in recent American writing – particularly the Objectivist poets
Objectivist poets
The Objectivist poets were a loose-knit group of second-generation Modernists who emerged in the 1930s. They were mainly American and were influenced by, amongst others, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams...
, the Black Mountain poets
Black Mountain poets
The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid 20th century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College.-Background:...
, the San Francisco Renaissance
San Francisco Renaissance
The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic avant-garde. However, others The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range...
, the New York School
New York School
The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
, and the Language School
Language school
A language school is a school where one studies a foreign language. Classes at a language school are usually geared towards, but not limited to, communicative competence in a foreign language...
.
Davidson, who recently became hearing impaired, has written extensively on disability issues, most recently "Hearing Things: The Scandal of Speech in Deaf Performance," in Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities, "Phantom Limbs: Film Noir and the Disabled Body," GLQ 9:1-2 (2003), and "Strange Blood: Hemophobia and the Unexplored Boundaries of Queer Nation," in Beyond the Boundary: Reconstructing Cultural Identity in a Multicultural Context. His essays on disability are forthcoming in Concerto for the Left Hand: Disability and the Defamiliar Body (University of Michigan). His forthcoming critical work, Outskirts of Form: Practicing Cultural Poetics, is scheduled for publication in 2011 by Wesleyan University Press.
In addition to being a widely published poet and poetry editor
(he is represented in the 2004 edition of Best American Poetry by a poem entitled "Bad Modernism"), Davidson is known for insightful literary criticism, his work in disability studies, and for the meticulous editing of the monumental George Oppen, New Collected Poems: this in which Davidson shares in the integrity of his subject.
Poetry
- The Mutabilities & The Foul Papers. Sand Dollar Books 1976
- Summer Letters. Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press 1977 Published in pamphlet form as Sparrow 61
- The Prose of Fact. Berkeley: The Figures, 1981
- The Landing of Rochambeau. Providence, R.I.: Burning DeckBurning Deck PressBurning Deck is a small press specializing in the publication of experimental poetry and prose. Burning Deck was founded by the writers Keith Waldrop and Rosmarie Waldrop in 1961.-Overview:...
, 1985 - Analogy of the Ion. Great Barrington, MA: The Figures, 1988
- Post Hoc. Bolinas, Calif.: Avenue B, 1990
- The Arcades. O Books, Fall 1999
- editor of George Oppen: New Collected Poems. New York: New Directions, 2002
Prose
- The San Francisco RenaissanceSan Francisco RenaissanceThe term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic avant-garde. However, others The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range...
: Poetics and Community at Mid-Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. - Leningrad: American Writers in the Soviet Union (with Lyn HejinianLyn HejinianLyn Hejinian is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is well known for her landmark work My Life , as well as her book of essays, The Language of Inquiry .-Life:Hejinian was born in the San...
, Ron SillimanRon SillimanRon Silliman is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wrote a single poem, The Alphabet...
, and Barrett WattenBarrett WattenBarrett Watten is an American poet, editor, and educator often associated with the Language poets.Since 1994, Watten has taught modernism and cultural studies at Wayne State University in Detroit...
). San Francisco: Mercury House, 1991. - Ghostlier Demarcations: Modern Poetry and the Material Word. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
- Guys Like Us: Citing Masculinity in Cold War Poetics. U of Chicago Press, 2003.
- Concerto for the Left Hand: Disability and the Defamiliar Body. University of Michigan Press, 2008.
Articles
- "Notes beyond the Notes: Wallace Stevens and Contemporary Poetics," Wallace StevensWallace StevensWallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...
: The Poetics of Modernism, ed. Albert Gelpi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. - "Dismantling 'Mantis:' Reification and Objectivist Poetics," American Literary History, 3.3 (Fall 1991): 521-541.
- "Marginality in the Margins: Robert Duncan's Textual Politics," Contemporary Literature, 33.2 (Summer 1992): 275-301.
- "'When the world strips down and rouges up:' Redressing Whitman," Breaking Bounds: Whitman and American Cultural Studies, ed. Betsy Erkkila. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
- "The Lady from Shanghai: California Orientalism and 'guys like us,'" Western American Literature (Winter 2001).
- "Strange Blood: Hemophobia and the Unexplored Boundaries of Queer Nation." Beyond the Boundary: American Identity and Multiculturalism. Ed. Tim Powell. New Brunswick: Rutgers U Press, 1999. 39-60.
- "Hearing Things: The Scandal of Voice in Deaf Performance," Enabling the Humanities: A Disability Studies Sourcebook, eds. Sharon Snyder, Brenda Jo Brueggemann, and Rosemarie Garland Thomson. New York: Modern Language Association, 2001.
External links
- http://www.deaftoday.com/v3/archives/2005/11/silence_is_gold.htmlRe-siting poetry through American Sign Language ASLASLASL is a common initialism for American Sign Language, and may also refer to:*Above sea level, altitude measurement*Adobe Source Libraries, a set of open source software libraries by Adobe...
] - The Scandal of Speech in Deaf Performance essay at ubuweb
- Davidson on collecting the poems of George Oppen
- http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/zukofsky/davidson.htmDavidson on Louis ZukofskyLouis ZukofskyLouis Zukofsky was an American poet. He was one of the founders and the primary theorist of the Objectivist group of poets and thus an important influence on subsequent generations of poets in America and abroad.-Life:...
's "Mantis"] - Discourse in Poetry: Bakhtin and Extensions of the Dialogical pdf-reprint of this article & Answering Motion, both of these Davidson pieces as they appeared in Code of Signals (ed. Michael PalmerMichael PalmerMichael Palmer is an American poet and translator. He attended Harvard University where he earned a BA in French and a MA in Comparative Literature. He has worked extensively with Contemporary dance for over thirty years and has collaborated with many composers and visual artists...
, 1983). Available again in e-bookE-bookAn electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
at Duration Press's out-of-print-archive.