Everyday Ornaments: Feminist Poetics and Time

“What shall our new ornaments be? How should we adorn mortality now?,” asks the poet Lisa Robertson in her introduction to The Weather, a book that is itself dedicated to the everyday practices of atmospheric description. This class will examine how feminist poetic practices can transform the nonmonumental realm of day-to day life through documenting, description, performance, and ornamentation. We will look especially closely at the writings of Bernadette Mayer, who, in her book Midwinter Day, attempts to exhaustively document a single day, December 22, 1978.