Against the busy background of the “information age” and the “anthropocene,” where’s poetry? It might seem invisible, irrelevant, but Demonstrategy proves it as salient as ever, and more urgent. In paired essays about poetry in the world and the world in poetry, Demonstrategy finds poetry’s pulse steady and strong.
Acknowledgments 9
Preamble 13
Article 1: Make another world, make this world otherwise.
1.1 : Poetry Against Growth 15
1.2 : Poetry Against Poems 26
Article 2: Double stance, double vision.
2.1 : Poetry For Relationship 38
2.2 : Poetry For Justice 48
Article 3: Think making, make thinking.
3.1 : Poetry Against Philosophy 57
3.2 : Poetry Against Fragmentation 64
Article 4: See what is at stake, change what is at stake.
4.1 : Poetry For Reparation 71
4.2 : Poetry For Preparation 78
Article 5: Everything that descends must diverge.
5.1 : Poetry Against Patriarchy 86
5.2 : Poetry Against Tyranny 97
Article 6: Ask me once, stranger you; ask me twice, stranger me.
6.1 : Poetry For Xenophilia 108
6.2 : Poetry For Change 112
Article 7: No secrets means no exceptions.
7.1 : Poetry Against Expectations 116
7.2 : Poetry Against Exceptionalism 126
Article 8: Tell me someone I don’t already know.
8.1 : Poetry For Discovery 136
8.2 : Poetry For Self-Knowledge 140
Article 9: One word changes, one word changes everything.
9.1 : Poetry Against Correspondence 145
9.2 : Poetry Against Fungibility 156
Article 10: Not yet as it should be, no longer as it was.
10.1 : Poetry For Dissent 163
10.2 : Poetry For Hybridity 168
Amendments 179
Works Cited 181