Torques

Rachel Blau DuPlessis is an American poet-critic, whose on-going long poem project, begun in 1986, is collected here in Torques: Drafts 58-76, as well as in Drafts 1-38, Toll (Wesleyan U.P., 2001) and Drafts 39-57, Pledge, with Draft unnnumbered: Precis (Salt Publishing, 2004). DuPlessis was awarded a residency at Bellagio in 2007; she was the recipient of a Pew Fellowship for Artists and of the Roy Harvey Pearce/ Archive for New Poetry Prize, both in 2002.

In Drafts, DuPlessis combines narrative and lyric elements, crosses genres (documentary, report, ode, elegy, autobiography, midrash), creates palimpsests, uses gloss, creolisation, over-writing, multiple fonts, punning, and word-hinges, all of which contribute to a sense of the text as being at once inclusive (polyvocal, multi-cultural, and symphonic) as well as filled with gaps, hesitant, and conflicted. Blacked-out patches of text in “Draft 5: Gap,” “Draft 52: Midrash,” and “Draft 68: Threshold” remind the reader of the overlay of social censorship that regulate such tracings of the past.”

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsGrid of Drafts Draft 58: In SituDraft 59: Flash BackDraft 60: RebusDraft 61: PyxDraft 62: GapDraft 63: Dialogue of self and soulDraft 64: Forward SlashDraft 65: ThatDraft 66: ScrollDraft 67: Spirit DittiesDraft 68: ThresholdDraft 69: SentencesDraft LXX: LexiconDraft 71: Headlines, with SpoilDraft 72: NanifestoDraft 73: VertigoDraft 74: WandererDraft 75: DoggerelDraft 76: Work Table With Scale ModelsNotes