Someone thinking about contemporary US poetry and capitalism might start with a few of the following questions. Why turn to poetry to think about capitalism? Poems exist at some distance from the dynamics of production and circulation that define the global capitalist economy—in a way that visual art, for instance, does not. What particular knowledge does poetry provide about capitalism that could not be gleaned from social theory or other aesthetic forms? The large canvas of the novel has been important for anatomizing changes in historical capitalism, but poetry, at least the shorter, nonnarrative forms, does not have that kind of time and space. Are historical forms and genres of poetry symptoms of moments in capitalism, intricate products of the availability of leisure time or of the demand to find advertising jingles? If so, the gulf between an element of a poem, such as rhyme or syntax, and an element of an economic system feels intimidatingly vast. It is difficult and often unconvincing to explain the artifice of poetry as either a passive reflection or an active reconfiguration of the world. One response is to pluralize what “poetry” refers to, looking at vernacular forms and performances, direct interventions at local sites of protest and occupation. Does poetry, in these theaters, have some use in mitigating the destructive social and affective consequences of capitalism? Historical examples of revolutionary uses of poetry might focus on the immediate effects of slogans and chants: contemporary protests from Occupy to Tahrir Square, Ferguson, and Charlottesville have featured this kind of poetry. Or does poetry consolidate practices, habits, kinds of behavior that may be said to reproduce ways of living and thinking under capitalism? The obliqueness of style and language, heightened in many varieties of

中文翻译：

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当代诗歌与资本主义

思考当代美国诗歌和资本主义的人可能会从以下几个问题开始。为什么要转向诗歌来思考资本主义？诗歌与定义全球资本主义经济的生产和流通动态相距甚远——例如视觉艺术就没有这种方式。诗歌提供了哪些无法从社会理论或其他美学形式中收集到的关于资本主义的特殊知识？小说的大画布对于剖析历史资本主义的变化很重要，但诗歌，至少是较短的非叙事形式，没有那种时间和空间。诗歌的历史形式和体裁是资本主义时刻的征兆，是闲暇时间的可用性还是寻找广告歌曲的需求的复杂产物？如果是这样的话，一首诗的元素（如押韵或句法）与经济系统的元素之间的鸿沟令人生畏。将诗歌的技巧解释为被动的反映或世界的主动重新配置是困难的，而且往往是不令人信服的。一种回应是将“诗歌”所指的内容多元化，着眼于本土形式和表演，直接干预当地抗议和占领场所。在这些剧院里，诗歌在减轻资本主义破坏性的社会和情感后果方面有什么用处吗？诗歌革命使用的历史例子可能集中在口号和圣歌的直接影响上：从占领运动到解放广场、弗格森和夏洛茨维尔的当代抗议活动都以这种诗歌为特色。还是诗歌巩固了实践、习惯、什么样的行为可以说是复制资本主义下的生活方式和思维方式？风格和语言的倾斜，在许多种类的