Symposium on Poetic “Risk”

The latest issue of Pleiades puts forth a special Symposium on Poetic “Risk” in which poets and critics have been invited to select a recent poem that is “risky” and write a short essay about why. In the introduction to the section, the editors say that 10 or 15 years ago, risk in poetry was a big topic, but now there has been less discussion of it. “We found ourselves wondering: Has the idea of ‘risk’ in poetry been somehow rendered obsolete? Is it now considered a less important poetic value than it once was? Are there new and exciting ways that poets are currently taking risks in their works? Are the risks of poetry actually quite constant and old?”

Contributors to this section include Robert Archambeau, Rae Armantrout, Jaswinder Bolina, Victoria Chang, Heather Christle, martha Collins, Carl Dennis, John Gallaher, Tony Hoagland, Cathy Park Hong, Joan Houlihan, Joy Katz, John Koethe, Randall Mann, Adrian Matejka, and Rusty Morrison.