SOURCE: Brossard, Nicole. “Poetic Politics.” In The Politics of Poetic Form: Poetry and Public Policy, edited by Charles Bernstein, pp. 73-82. New York: Roof Books, 1990.

In the following essay, Brossard outlines her views on writing, desire, language, and reality, considering the political element of each.

I have divided my presentation into two parts. The first part has to do with the body of writing, its motivations, its energies. The second part has to do with the references and values that surround us and the kinds of linguistic reaction they call for when we disagree with them. I say when we disagree with them because I don't believe that one becomes a writer to reinforce common values or common perspectives on reality.

I would like, in this talk, to make space for questions regarding different rituals, different approaches, different postures that we take in language in order to exist...