Tom Andrews: Via Negativa: Traveling in Contemporary Poetry (July 1997)

In this lecture, Tom Andrews creates an imaginary symposium: four voices, each representing a different set of convictions in contemporary poetry, discuss books by Charles Wright, Jane Mead, Bill Knott, and Michael Palmer, and in doing so disclose the theoretical and political assumptions of their work. Andrews lets his imaginary voices argue, but leaves the argument unresolved; instead, he develops each position as fully as possible so we might better understand the terms of the argument, and what is at stake.