Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Sleeping With The Dictionary Response

Mullen definitely displays her intense love of the English language and her dictionary throughout her entire book. Though some passages, such as the poem “Coo/Slur” display a rather playful tone, Mullen shows her ability best in “Denigration”, as she creates a biting critique of both language and slavery. Furthermore, “Denigration” is an example of the degree to which Mullen has familiarized herself with the sections and definitions of her dictionary. Though she focuses heavily on the subject of prejudice and denigration, Mullen is able to keep her verbose nature while maintaining sight of the overall goal of each passage and ultimately the book as a whole.

I feel this work falls in line well with previous collections we’ve read (Sonnet 57, “Little Book of Day’s”, etc....) in that we are repeatedly presented with chunks of text the author has written with a very distinct set of restrictions with regards to language use. Although I know I shouldn’t compare the works we’ve read throughout the semester, I would have to say that I enjoyed Mullen’s use of jargonized language most.

1 comment:

  1. I think its good that you're drawing lines between the different things we've read over the semester. Like Hoover and Caspers, Mullen creates a really cohesive body of work within restrictions.

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