Locating the Lyric Speaker: Subjectivity, Place, and Affect in CAConrad’s Poetics of Procedure

Abstract

In this thesis, the radical poetry of CAConrad is explored in relation to ecocriticism and affect theory in order to reassess the position of the lyric subject. CAConrad’s poetics are based on (soma)tic exercises that place and trace the body in the world, which goes against popular Romantic notions of the lyric speaker as an isolated subject. Rather, the political engagement with the world that the (soma)tics facilitate opens up new dimensions to the poems. These show the lyric subject as moving in its poetic and worldly environment, which is further elaborated on by connecting affect and its material status to language and the subject in relation to author and reader. The subject is taken out of isolation and into the world and is shown to be an agent of resistance in its capability to affect and be affected.