Virtuosity: Risk and Excess in Poetic Form (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781009661836)

This Element examines how contemporary poets reimagine virtuosity as a mode of poetic performance. It sees virtuosity not as a fixed attribute but a strategic choice - one a poet may enter at specific moments, in specific forms, to heighten the reader's experience. Certain forms are themselves virtuosic, inviting expectations of difficulty, display, and compositional drama. Through readings of Paul Muldoon, Tyehimba Jess, and Joyelle McSweeney, the Element explores how poetic virtuosity stages not just skill, but stakes: a charged interplay of technique and expressivity. These poets embrace formal extravagance and linguistic excess, making visible the labour of composition while risking the charge of style over substance. Drawing on a nineteenth-century lineage of debates in music and art, the Element traces how poetic virtuosity confronts crisis. In doing so, it rethinks poetic form as an aesthetic of risk, outpouring, and resistance.

Author: Ailbhe Darcy
ISBN-10: 1009661833
ISBN-13: 9781009661836
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 07/02/2026
Pages: 84
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.63lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.25d