Nonfiction. Literary Criticism. Poetics. LISTENING TO READING presents two different kinds of writing about poetry—critical analysis and performance—both of which pay particular attention to sound, shape, and relation of sound/shape to meaning. It offers a critical and performative presentation of experimental writing, including essays on work by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, David Bromige, Lyn Hejinian, Clark Coolidge, Beverly Dahlen, Susan Howe, Michael Palmer, Leslie Scalapino and others. "[This] discussion of difficult, ostensibly `inaccessible' poetries cries out for a wider audience, and could have a far-reaching impact on our general understanding of critical theory and practice"—Joe Amato.

Author City: BOLINAS, CA USA

Stephen Ratcliffe's more than twenty books of poetry include NEW YORK NOTES (1983), DISTANCE (1986), [WHERE LATE THE SWEET] BIRDS SANG (1989), SOUND/(SYSTEM) (2002), PORTRAITS & REPETITION (2002), REAL (2007), CONVERSATION (2011), and CLOUD / RIDGE (2011). He is also the author of three books of literary criticism: Campion: On Song (1981), LISTENING TO READING (2000), and READING THE UNSEEN: (OFFSTAGE) HAMLET (2009). He lives in Bolinas, California, and teaches at Mills College in Oakland.