Other Influences: An Untold History of Feminist Avant-Garde Poetry

A compelling collection of original essays on influence that restore a feminist avant-garde that includes women of color, queer, and trans women.

Other Influences frames a new literary history in which feminist, avant-garde, and poetry practices intersect, foregrounding critically neglected but artistically powerful lineages in twentieth- and twenty-first-century North American poetry. In this collection, Marcella Durand and Jennifer Firestone assemble original essays by a range of leading contemporary feminist avant-garde poets asked to consider their lineages, inspirations, and influences. Their reflections contain many surprises, with writers citing scientists, artists, and little-known feminist writers from other eras and traditions; for example, Tracie Morris discusses the Gee’s Bend quilters, Carla Harryman writes about her collaboration with Lyn Hejinian, and Cecilia Vicuña cites the Tao Te Ching.

Unlike other collections of ＂writers on writing,＂ Other Influences demonstrates a complex feminist ethos of paying homage to forebears while at the same time resisting the parts of a history, along with previous concepts of ＂influence,＂ that might be stale or limiting. Countering a masculinist model of ＂influence＂ à la Harold Bloom, Durand and Firestone illuminate the diverse, nonhierarchical ecosystems of feminist avant-garde poetry and re-envision ＂influence＂ through their own lens and on their own terms--aspiring to no less than the unmaking of a canon.

Contributors:
Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Nicole Brossard, Brenda Coultas, Mónica de la Torre, Tonya M. Foster, Renee Gladman, Carla Harryman, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Erica Hunt, Rachel Levitsky, Bernadette Mayer, Tracie Morris, Harryette Mullen, Eileen Myles, Sawako Nakayasu, Hoa Nguyen, Julie Patton, KPrevallet, Evelyn Reilly, Trish Salah, Prageeta Sharma, Patricia Spears Jones, Stacy Szymaszek, Anne Tardos, Anne Waldman, Rosmarie Waldrop

Marcella Durand is a poet, essayist, and translator. Recent books include To husband is to tender; The Prospect; and a translation from the French of Michèle Métail’s book-length poem, Earth’s Horizons/Les Horizons du sol. She is the 2021 recipient of the C.D. Wright Award in Poetry from the Foundation of Contemporary Art.
Jennifer Firestone is Associate Professor of Writing (Poetry), Chair of Writing and Co-Chair of Literary Studies and Director of a Pedagogy Program, Academic Fellows, at The New School’s Eugene Lang College in New York City. She is the author of five books of poetry and the co-editor, with Dana Teen Lomax, of Letters To Poets.