Poetry. Literary History & Criticism. Primarily known for her important anthology of concrete poetry published in the late 1960s, Mary Ellen Solt also wrote a number of important critical essays on William Carlos Williams. Later in her career, Solt quietly developed an interest in semeiotics and wrote papers exploring the theories of Charles Sanders Peirce in close reading of Williams and of concrete poetry. Her scholarly essays as a whole makes an important connection between the early work of Objectivist poets like Oppen, Zukofsky, and Williams and the experimentation of Concretist poets around the world. Solt's vast contribution to American and international poetry is recorded here in this book through newly edited versions of all her essays alongside many of her poems, and other documentary material. The volume, edited by Antonio Sergio Bessa, includes introductory essays by Bessa, Marjorie Perloff, and Kenneth Goldsmith; and it provides excellent insight into Solt's practice as a scholar and poet.

Author City: BRONX, NY USA

Antonio Sergio Bessa is director of curatorial and education programs at the Bronx Museum. He is a scholar of concrete poetry with several papers published on the subject.