Ethnopoetics and the performativity of place: Jerome Rothenberg and "That Dada Strain"

Abstract

This chapter proposes that Jerome Rothenberg’s work as editor of several influential anthologies – from Technicians of the Sacred (1967) and Shaking the Pumpkin (1972) to Poems for the Millennium (1995) – develops a protean definition of poesis as a direct challenge to cultural imperialism. In contradistinction to the categorizing of schools and movements (Black Mountain, Beat, New York, Language etc.), I examine how Rothenberg adopted a dialectical or processual anthropology in creating anthologies that share a generative quality, inviting the reader to actively participate in an interrogation of the what, how, who, when and if/was/is of ethnopoetics. Performing a series of ethnopoetic readings, I describe the insistently processual dynamic of welcoming the other which looks to secure an ethical responsibility in the performance of place.