Bad History

Poetry. Cultural Writing. The poem looks back on the decades previous to the first Gulf War and forwards--toward a duration of events, which, because the poem is in history, do not cease to occur. In a famous modern definition, an epic poem is a poem including history. In Barret Watten's BAD HISTORY, history includes the poem. The poem, too, becomes the event of its own recording. Watten is the co-editor of POETICS JOURNAL and author of TOTAL SYNTAX, essays on modern and contemporary poetic...