Prior to Meaning: The Protosemantic and Poetics

Avant-Garde & Modernism Studies

by Steve McCaffery

Prior to Meaning collects a decade of writing on poetry, language, and the theory of writing by one of the most innovative and conceptually challenging poets of the last twenty-five years. In essays that are wide ranging, richly detailed, and novel in their surprising juxtapositions of disparate material, Steve McCaffery works to undo the current bifurcation between theory and practice--to show how a poetic text might be the source rather than the product of the theoretical against which it must be read.

Genres: Poetry

339 pages, Paperback

First published August 2, 2001

About the author

Steve McCaffery is the author of over twenty-five books of poetry and criticism. He has twice been awarded the Gertrude Stein Award for innovative poetry and twice shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award. His poems have been published in more than a dozen countries. A long-time resident of Toronto, he is currently the David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters, University at Buffalo.

Reviews

[Douglas Summers-Stay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this sounded worth reading-- it talks about semantics, Milton, Leibniz, Wittgenstein, poetry, all things I like-- but I couldn't understand the postmodern vocabulary and allusions well enough to even read the introduction through, and although I tried several other chapters I just couldn't figure it out. I'm sure there were things worth reading in there but it was impenetrable to me.