Constructive Negativity: Prize Culture, Evaluation, and Dis/Ability in Canadian Poetry

By Shane Neilson

Literary Nonfiction. Essay. Disability Studies. CONSTRUCTIVE NEGATIVITY is a book of criticism without precedent in Canadian Literature. The result of over twenty years of participation in the nation's poetry community, it combines Shane Neilson's lived experience of dis/ability with prize culture theory in order to create that rarest of creatures: criticism as page-turner. In the first section of the book, Neilson repurposes Rilke's famous admonition, saying to poets "You must change your genre--meaning, you must write criticism in order for poetry to have a life in an era dominated by prize culture. Later, Neilson provides a starting point for others to engage with books of Canadian poetry using the lens of dis/ability, covering a range of texts and especially weighing in on the author's particular community--those with invisible disability.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1989287344
• ISBN13: 9781989287347
• Release Date: October 2019
• Publisher: Palimpsest Press
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.9"