Utter Vulnerability

Essays on the Poetry of John Wieners

Michael Kindellan, Alex/Rose Cocker

• Publisher: Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée
• Year: 2026
• eBook ISBN:
  9782367815923
• Topic: Literature
• Index: Literature

Utter Vulnerability: Essays on the Poetry of John Wieners is the first-ever book devoted exclusively to this extraordinary writer, a figure Allen Ginsberg once called "one of the greatest poets around". Featuring work by many of Wieners' most articulate and passionate contemporary exponents, the essays gathered here consider the life, styles, aesthetics, and artistic achievements of one of America's most original voices. From devoted close readings to socio-historical contextualisations, together our contributors explore a fascinating schedule of ideas and actualities of style, sexuality, queerness, mental illness, resilience, and commitment to continual literary (re)invention. As such, Utter Vulnerability represents a significant moment in the unfinished history of Wieners' critical reception. A landmark publication, this book provides a new platform for future discussion, debate, and appreciation.

Table of contents

• Introductory pages
• Table of contents
• Editors’ Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Texts
• Preface
• Making Use of This Pain: The John Wieners Archives
• The Survival of John Wieners: Psychiatric Incarceration, Gay and Mental Patients’ Liberation and Poetics
• Beyond Confession
• Lyric Audibility: In Public
• “Spirits his Wife Speaks of / In the Singular”: Voice and Ventriloquy in the Poetry of John Wieners
• Lying Under its Law
• Photographs
• Graphic Wieners
• John Wieners and “the only one who ever mattered”
• “A new structure from love”: Notes on John Wieners’ Devotional Poetics
• Behind Behind the State Capitol: Method and Madness
• A John Wieners Checklist
• Critical Bibliography