The Dramatic I/Eye: Reflections on Voice and Form in Contemporary Poetry
The West Chester University Poetry Center is pleased to announce this Call for Papers and Poems for our virtual poetry and pedagogy conference,The Dramatic I/Eye: Reflections on Voice and Form in Contemporary Poetry, to be held November 11-12, 2022. Early Twentieth Century African American poet Sterling Brown once said, “every I is a dramatic I.” How many times must we remind our students (and ourselves) not to confuse the speaker with the poet when they are analyzing poetry? How many times do we anticipate that a poet’s work will give voice to a particular subject position, identity, experience, or way of seeing the world simply because we’ve read their bio sketch? What happens when the poet or the speaker pushes the bounds of our expectations?