Agon

by Judith Goldman

Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. Hybrid Genre. A cross-genre work that intercuts and assembles three textual threads, AGON inventories ubiquitous contemporary exempla of weaponization: in the culture propagated by neoliberalism, all social forms–ordinary, necessary relations, transactions, and communications–have been turned into fodder for social aggression. AGON audits the disavowed violence of abstractive technologies in their material effects, while also tracing the subtle anatomy of violence in its more “proper” spheres. Is poetry one of these? Writing alongside Amiri Baraka’s invective “Black Art,” AGON builds a dossier on the aggressivity peculiar to literary speech, thinking this issue in relation to the volatile politics around poetry in America at this moment.

230 pages, ebook

First published April 10, 2017

About the author

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Reviews

[17CECO · Rating 5 out of 5]

damn. this ollied all over my dumb brain--sliding from relentless weaponization to the politics of appropriation and citation, Lauren Berlant to Amiri Baraka, poetry to prose. tho I had to let go of wanting more poetry from it to enjoy. looking out for more from this press.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know I just finished "Our Hideous Progeny" but I can't help but feel this book is a Frankenstein-like project. A re-animation of texts, a sutured and fraying set of paragraphs and poems, a charged corpse. It's agon(y). I found myself adrift as much as I found footing in the dense theoretical work. But I suppose that's intentional given it's constant interruptions, gaps, gasps. The central idea introduced is a weaponization (of all sorts of things but mainly language). The poems throughout the book straight-quote lots of bits current culture: racial violence, hate speech legislation, theory, news feeds, violent encounters in the news, etc... they're yelling. Loud. But the poems are riddled with holes, numbers, gaps, barcodes. So while activating/enunciating/repeating violent language, that language is simultaneously already ruptured, damaged, distressed (maybe fugitive). An interesting and deeply troubling read.