Overview

Poetry. At first glance, Laura McCullough's collection, SPEECH ACTS--borrowing its title from the branch of linguistics interested in the nature and intention of artifacts of language and their effect in communication--may seem overly sensational, the surface subject matter at times blatantly sexual, but on closer interrogation, McCullough is attempting to strip away the obfuscations of language(s), the barriers between genders, the difficulties of intimacy and reveal the relational and power balances between people. Behind the sometimes erotically charged poems in SPEECH ACTS is a real concern for linguistics, the philosophy of, the tools of. Beneath the bawdy, glittering surface and language play in Speech Acts is McCullough's desire to kiss the mouth of another/ language, to go beyond the veils that separate people, nations, perhaps this world from whatever comes after. These poems are not just about love; they grieve over the impossibility of ever fully comprehending anything at all, let alone another human being.

Full Product Details

9780982636442

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Laura McCullough's books of poetry include RIGGER DEATH AND HOIST ANOTHER (Black Lawrence Press, 2013), PANIC (winner of the Kinereth Gensler Award, Alice James Books, 2011), SPEECH ACTS (Black Lawrence Press, 2010), and WHAT MEN WANT (XOXOX Books, 2009), and her first book, The Dancing Bear (Open Book Press, 06). Her chapbooks include Women & Other Hostages (Gob Pile Poetry Series, Amsterdam Books, 011), and Elephant Anger, online at Mudlark. She is the editor of two anthologies, The Room & the World: Essays on the poet Stephen Dunn, Syracuse University Press, Fall 2013, and A Sense of Regard: Essays on Poetry and Race, University of Georgia Press, slated for Fall 2014. She is the editor of Mead: the Magazine of Literature and Libations and an editor at large for TranStudies Magazine. She holds an MFA from Goddard College, and her essays, criticism, poems, creative non-fiction, and short fiction have appeared in or are forthcoming in The Georgia Review, The Birmingham Review, The Florida Review, New South, Guernica, The American Poetry Review, Green Mountains Review, Pank, The Writer's Chronicle, Gulf Coast, Pedestal, Painted Bride Quarterly, and many others. She has recently completed a full length memoir, The Belt of Venus.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available