Wild Intelligence: Poets’ Libraries and the Politics of Knowledge in Postwar America
Wild Intelligence: Poets’ Libraries and the Politics of Knowledge in Postwar America
$28.95
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224 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 x 0.70 in, 6 illus.
We are thrilled to announce Lost & Found Editor and long-time collaborator Mary Catherine Kinniburgh’s new book Wild Intelligence: Poets’ Libraries and the Politics of Knowledge in Postwar America, published by University of Massachusetts Press in collaboration with Lost & Found Elsewhere, which takes up case studies of four poets and their libraries: Charles Olson (1910–1970), Diane di Prima (1934–2020), Gerrit Lansing (1928–2018), and Audre Lorde (1934–1992).
Kinniburgh shows that the postwar American poet’s library should not just be understood according to individual books within their collection but rather as an archival resource that sheds light on the history of information management and knowledge preservation, and underscores the idea that a life of poetry (and perhaps even book-collecting!) is a political and spiritual act. Exploring traditions and systems that had been overlooked, buried, occulted, or censored, these poets sought to recover a sense of history and chart a way forward; Kinniburgh seeks to tell their story.
Click here to read and interview with Mary Catherine Kinniburgh and L&F General Editor Ammiel Alcalay about the book.