Unlimited Eligibility?

<p><b>Rewrites the dominant narrative of the political work of lyric poetry in the United States since the nineteenth century.</b></p><p>What if increased visibility of marginalized identities-a goal of much socially committed lyric poetry in the United States-does not necessarily lead to increased social recognition? For many contemporary scholars, this is the central question of lyric politics.<i>Unlimited Eligibility?</i> revisits and deeply historicizes this question. Ryan Cull explores the relationship of a diverse set of poets, including Walt Whitman, Jean Toomer, Hart Crane, James Merrill, Thylias Moss, and Claudia Rankine, to a series of movements intended to build inclusion: the St. Louis Hegelians, cultural pluralism, identity politics, and multiculturalism. In tracing the tensions in lyric poetry's merger with the pursuit of recognition, Cull offers a new history of the political work of lyric poetry while exposing the discursive roots of the nation's faltering progress toward becoming a more inclusive democracy.</p>