Activist Poetics by John Kinsella Anarchy in the Avon Valley

John Kinsella is known internationally as the acclaimed author of more than thirty books of poetry and prose, but in tandem withand often throughthose creative works, Kinsella is also a prominent political activist. In this collection of essays, he explores anarchism, veganism, pacifism, and ecological poetics and makes a compelling argument for poetry as a vital form of resistance to a variety of social and ethical ills. Building on his own earlier notion of "linguistic disobedience," he analyzes his poetry and prose in the context of resistance. For Kinsella, all poetry is a call to action, andActivist Poeticsreads like a lively manifesto for it to escape the aesthetic vacuum and enter the real world.

Niall Lucy is a Research Fellow with the Australia Research Institute. He is a former Head of the School of Arts at Murdoch University, where he taught for many years in the Literature, Philosophy and Communication Studies programs. John Kinsella is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, Professor of English at Kenyon College in the United States and Adjunct Professor to Edith Cowan University, Western Australia, where he is a Principal of the Landscape and Language Centre. He is a poetry critic for the Observer and was founding editor of the literary journal Salt.