Translating the Unspeakable: Poetry and the Innovative Necessity

by Kathleen Fraser

A prominent avant-garde poet charts both her personal artistic development and the difficulties faced by women writers pursuing innovative paths.
An accomplished and influential poet, Kathleen Fraser has been instrumental in drawing attention to other women poets working
outside the mainstream. Translating the Unspeakable gathers eighteen of her essays written over nearly twenty years, combining autobiography and criticism to examine what it means for any artist to innovate instead of following an already traveled path.
In autobiographical passages Fraser tells how her generation was influenced by revolutions in art and philosophy during the early 1960s and how she spent years pursuing idiosyncratic means of rediscovering the poem's terms. By the 1970s her evolving poetics were challenged by questions of gender, until immersion in feminist/modernist scholarship led her to initiate greater dialogue among experimentalist poets.
Other essays examine modernist women writers, their contemporary successors, and the visual poetics they have practiced. By exploring the work of such poets as H. D., Mina Loy, Lorine Niedecker, and Barbara Guest, Fraser conveys their struggle to establish a presence within accepted poetic conventions and describes the role experimentation plays in helping women overcome self-imposed silence.
All of Fraser's writings explore how the search to find one's own way of speaking into a very private yet historic space—of translating the unspeakable—drives poetic experimentation for women and men alike. This provocative book provides a glimpse into the thought processes of
the poetic mind, enhancing our understanding of innovative writing.

Genres: Poetry

228 pages, Paperback

First published December 7, 1999

About the author

After graduating in English Literature, 1959, from Occidental College (California), Kathleen Fraser went to NYC to work as an editorial associate for Mademoiselle magazine, pursuing her poetic studies with Stanly Kunitz at The 92nd St. Y "Poetry Center" and, briefly, with Robert Lowell and Kenneth Koch at The New School. At this time, she began to meet a number of New York poets associated with Black Mountain, The Objectivists and the New York School. Among these poets, those to have most important influence on her work were Frank O'Hara, Barbara Guest and George Oppen. She later counted the works of Lorine Niedecker, Charles Olson and Basil Bunting as having a serious impact on her poetics. In 1964 she won the Frank O'Hara Poetry Prize and the American Academy's "Discovery Award". Other writing fellowships have included two NEA Poetry grants, in 1971 and 1978, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry in 1981.

After seven years as a journalist - writing and editing - and the publication of her first book - Change of Address [Kayak, 1968] - , Fraser was invited to teach as a poet-in-residence for two years at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, where her university teaching career began. She taught, subsequently, in contemporary literature and writing programs at Reed College and at San Francisco State University where she remained as a Professor of Creative Writing through 1992. In her early years at SFSU, Fraser directed The Poetry Center and founded the American Poetry Archives.

From 1983-1991, Fraser published and edited HOW(ever), a journal focused on innovative writing by contemporary women and "erased" or neglected texts by Anglo/American modernist women writers, together with associate editors Frances Jaffer, Beverly Dahlen and Susan Gevirtz and contributing editors Carolyn Burke and Rachel Blau DuPlessis. Fraser has just completed a manuscript of essays - Translating the Unspeakable - on those American poets and poetics having a particular impact on her own writing and thinking.

She has published twelve volumes of poems and two children's books, including What I Want (1974), Magritte Series (1977), New Shoes (1978), Each Next, narratives (1980), Something (even human voices) in the foreground, a lake (1984), Notes Preceding Trust (1987) , When New Time Folds Up (1993) and WING (1995). Her most recent collection, - il cuore : the heart - New & Selected Poems ( 1970-1995), was published by Wesleyan University Press in the Fall of 1997. Fraser splits her time between San Francisco and Rome where she lives with her husband, the philosopher/playwright Arthur Bierman, from March through June . She has lectured and given readings at a number of Italian universities and has translated Lampi e acqua, a book-length serial poem by Maria Obino (excerpts published in AVEC), and a selection of poems by Toni Maraini, Daniela Attanasi, Sara Zanghi and Giovanna Sandri (published in Thirteenth Moon, "Italian Women Writers" issue).

Reviews

[cy · Rating 4 out of 5]

skimmed a little, but these essays were rly readable and made me like her poems more

[Mackenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frasier does a wonderful job of discussing complex topics, both personal and communal, and expresses the relationship between being a female and being an innovative poet. I highly recommend it to anyone who's willing to take a risk in their writing and thinking.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

mind blowing.

[hh · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting collection of essays on language, poetry, the writing life, and gender concerns. not what i had expected out of this book from the title, but worth reading.