Verbal UFOs: Contemporary French Poetry on and Off the Page

How does French poetry navigate the advent of the digital and an increasingly polarized political landscape? Centering on the 1990s to the present, this book examines poetry's turn towards the public and its problems. While earlier poets privileged the language of personal expression, French poets today appropriate and reorganize the discourses of contemporary society. They turn to new approaches, adopting techniques from disciplines like the visual arts, and integrating an array of media into their works. Collapsing the boundaries separating poetry and its outsides, poets challenge the autonomy of literature and probe the language and practices that structure contemporary experience.