An essay addressing what, today is the poet’s labor? What conditions render it a relevant form? Contrasting sites of immaterial and reproductive work, Dena Yago finds the poet to cut across class and cultural borders, appearing as a common byproduct of global economic relations. What emerges in the individual poet’s engagement, Yago observes, is not only the suffering inflicted by the conditions of labor, but also the way his or her words are means of production.

Empire Poetry (View Pdf )