In his long poem Ace, Tom Raworth uses short lines of one- to four-word syllables to investigate the conflict of self-exploration and self-expression. The single columns of his poem complement this syllabic brevity to defy traditional logical and linguistic poetic sense, eschewing the confinement and conformity of syntax and sentence for experimental fragmentation. Ace’s fragmentation mirrors the limitations of human cognition, deriving meaning from patterns that repeat and reverberate in surprising ways, like the unexpected images of thought and memory that shape and are shaped by the mind. In problematicizing the poetic voice and its imbrication in human consciousness, Raworth figures a continuously critical stream-of-conscious speaker. But, in contrast to earlier models of self-assured speakers—for instance, the idea of the Romantic genius—Raworth constructs what might be called a “stream-of-self-conscious” speaker, a new mode of autonomous poetic identification that critiques its very self in the course of its poetic deployment.
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