lyric subjects 53interrogation dominate the poems. At points there is also a search
for patterns of interconnection and responsibility. She urges in
‘Ode on the Particle’, ‘so forget the time you dwelt in insolence
pretending to be unique’ (p. 71 ), and seeks instead ‘the unseen
connection of any specifi c body’ (p. 72 ). In a later poem from The
Sense Record ( 2003 ), ‘Grain of the Cutaway Insight’, there is the
berating of lyric form as a compulsion for order pitted against the
desire to commit thought as momentum and investigation: ‘My
thoughts are too awkward, too erratic to rest / at ease in the beauti-
ful iamb’.^55 The engagement of Moxley’s poetry in the world seeks
to counter what Charles Olson called the ‘lyrical interference of
the individual as ego’.^56 She states ‘the lyric “I” is not a political
universal, nor the guardian of the rights of men, but neither is it the
fl accid marker of an outdated bourgeois egotism’ (p. 57 ). As deceit-
ful as Moxley’s speaking subject may be, her work raises broader
aesthetic questions to show us how linguistic instabilities can lead
one to question the nature of selfhood and its relation to the larger
social sphere.
SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS
- Expressive lyric poetry raises questions about poetic voice and
articulation. - In contemporary poetry differences exist between poets’
approaches to the personal, illustrated, for example, in the elegy. - The examination of autobiography in the 1980 s is used by
some poets to engage with questions of race and identity and
ethnicity. - Self-portraiture presents poets with opportunities to dissect
processes of writing and composition, particularly in the poetry
of John Ashbery and Sujata Bhatt. - Many poets challenge the idea of the subject as a pre-existent
entity. Some poets attempt to show an evolving subjectivity in
their work, such as Jorie Graham. - For others the expression of a self through language is displaced
by an attention to the construction of language, for example
Michael Palmer and Jennifer Moxley.