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Article: The Weave Room.(Review)
- Article from:
- Poetry
- Article date:
- July 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Modern Poetry Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Weave Room,by Michael Chitwood. University of Chicago Press. $11.00.
"Poetry makes nothing happen"--but is this a definition or an observation? As with any type of discourse, readers identify "poetry" as much by what it isn't as by what it is: we feel sure, for example, that poems have nothing to do with how we order a Big Mac, and we feel equally certain that they have everything to do with emotion recollected in tranquility. But when we consider poetry and politics, our notions of "is" and "isn't" become harder to articulate. On one hand, Richard Posner, legal scholar and judge, asserts, "it damages literature to press it into the service of political ...