"9 Poets/1999" presents the work of ninety-nine poets in dialogue with one another across the divides of language, culture, and temperament. With contributions from the Americas, Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand and China, the volume features responses to questions posed by guest editor Charles Bernstein - responses that range from historical to imaginary and from philosophical to poetic. Each poet was asked to ponder a series of questions: is identity and important issue for your work, and, if so, in what sense; what do you see as the most urgent yet insufficiently addressed or considered, issue or issues for poetry and poetics at this moment; and, do you see your work in the context of a national state, or in the context of international capital, or in some other context.After years of exchange between artists - through translations, readings, and visits - the result is a collection of unique and significant literary works, one that is richly suggestive for the future not only of poetry but of literary and cultural studies as well.
Selected contributors of this title are: Adonis, Nicole Brossard, Robert Creeley, Mahmoud Darwish, Haroldo de Campos, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, Johanna Drucker, Edouard Glissant, Lyn Hejinian, Emmanuel Hocquard, Ernst Jandl, Pierre Joris, Friedrike Mayrocker, Steve McCaffery, Harryette Mullen, Tom Raworth, Lisa Robertson, Leslie Scalapino, Cecelia Vicuna and Rosemarie Waldrop.