Douglas Kearney ist ein amerikanischer Dichter und Librettist, dessen Werk sich durch eine tiefe Auseinandersetzung mit Klang und Rhythmus der Sprache auszeichnet. Seine Gedichte erforschen häufig Themen wie Identität, Geschichte und kulturelles Erbe durch innovative Formen und Bilder. Kearneys Stil ist bekannt für seine intellektuelle Tiefe, gepaart mit einem spielerischen Umgang mit Sprache. Mit seinen Schriften hat er sich als unverwechselbare Stimme in der zeitgenössischen amerikanischen Poesie etabliert.
This collection showcases the innovative voice of Douglas Kearney, a celebrated poet recognized with the Whiting Writers' Award. Known for his previous work, "The Black Automaton," Kearney continues to explore complex themes and unique poetic forms, pushing the boundaries of language and expression. His distinctive style invites readers to engage deeply with the text, offering a fresh perspective on contemporary poetry.
An experiment and experience in language, surveying the junction of violence, entertainment, race, and folklore.
Optic Subwoof is a collection of four talks that poet and National Book Award finalist Douglas Kearney presented for the Bagley Wright Lecture Series in 2020 and 2021. As kinetic on the page as they are in person, these lectures offer an urgent critique of the intersections between violence and entertainment, interrogating the ways in which poetry, humor, visual art, music, pop culture, and performance alternately uphold and subvert this violence. With genius precision and an avant-garde sensibility, Kearney examines the nuances around Black visibility and its aestheticization--or as Evie Shockley puts it "This work refuses to let us ignore the violent erasure and consumption of black bodies across history through the visual layering of language..." In myriad ways, Optic Subwoof is a book that establishes Kearney as one of the most dynamic writers and thinkers of the twenty-first century.