Premium Members Get 10% Off and Earn Rewards Find Out More
Letters to Kelly Clarkson
Poetry. LBGT Studies. In this sequence of prose poems addressed to 2002 American Idol reality TV show winner and insta-star Kelly Clarkson, Julia Bloch engages an America more willing to choose its next Fox, Coke, and Ford spokesperson than its next elected official. Through these letters, Bloch disassembles the faux-political phenomenon of the Fox Network reality TV smash hit, invoking critical questions about celebrity, democracy, femininity, and desire, as well as the mass cultural corporatization of the female body. LETTERS TO KELLY CLARKSON takes up these issues in poems that combine the intimacy of the epistolary form with the sonic intensity of verse. Employing formal methodologies aimed at interrupting and foregrounding the cultural politics of that intimate address, such as cut-ups, aleatory practices, non-narrative prose techniques, and parataxis, these poems mediate the tensions between local pleasure and global capital through the desirous and politicized spectacle of the pop star.

"As Julia Bloch turns her razor-sharp gaze to American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, she adopts the beseeching tone of a fan and the intimate address of a best girl confidante. All women know what it's like to be watched, but for Kelly, it's that scary feeling upped a notch, like the viewers' eyes have been pumped full of steroids. The gaze works both ways: the ghost of Kelly Clarkson follows Bloch everywhere, from San Francisco girl bars to Midwestern family reunions. For all their complexity of diction, there's a touching simplicity to Bloch's poems. By taking Kelly seriously, on her own terms, Bloch moves beyond the safety of 'camp' into a realm of genuine tragedy and love. It's a stunning collection."—Dodie Bellamy

1112648037
Letters to Kelly Clarkson
Poetry. LBGT Studies. In this sequence of prose poems addressed to 2002 American Idol reality TV show winner and insta-star Kelly Clarkson, Julia Bloch engages an America more willing to choose its next Fox, Coke, and Ford spokesperson than its next elected official. Through these letters, Bloch disassembles the faux-political phenomenon of the Fox Network reality TV smash hit, invoking critical questions about celebrity, democracy, femininity, and desire, as well as the mass cultural corporatization of the female body. LETTERS TO KELLY CLARKSON takes up these issues in poems that combine the intimacy of the epistolary form with the sonic intensity of verse. Employing formal methodologies aimed at interrupting and foregrounding the cultural politics of that intimate address, such as cut-ups, aleatory practices, non-narrative prose techniques, and parataxis, these poems mediate the tensions between local pleasure and global capital through the desirous and politicized spectacle of the pop star.

"As Julia Bloch turns her razor-sharp gaze to American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, she adopts the beseeching tone of a fan and the intimate address of a best girl confidante. All women know what it's like to be watched, but for Kelly, it's that scary feeling upped a notch, like the viewers' eyes have been pumped full of steroids. The gaze works both ways: the ghost of Kelly Clarkson follows Bloch everywhere, from San Francisco girl bars to Midwestern family reunions. For all their complexity of diction, there's a touching simplicity to Bloch's poems. By taking Kelly seriously, on her own terms, Bloch moves beyond the safety of 'camp' into a realm of genuine tragedy and love. It's a stunning collection."—Dodie Bellamy

15.0 In Stock
Letters to Kelly Clarkson

Letters to Kelly Clarkson

by Julia Bloch
Letters to Kelly Clarkson

Letters to Kelly Clarkson

by Julia Bloch

Overview

Poetry. LBGT Studies. In this sequence of prose poems addressed to 2002 American Idol reality TV show winner and insta-star Kelly Clarkson, Julia Bloch engages an America more willing to choose its next Fox, Coke, and Ford spokesperson than its next elected official. Through these letters, Bloch disassembles the faux-political phenomenon of the Fox Network reality TV smash hit, invoking critical questions about celebrity, democracy, femininity, and desire, as well as the mass cultural corporatization of the female body. LETTERS TO KELLY CLARKSON takes up these issues in poems that combine the intimacy of the epistolary form with the sonic intensity of verse. Employing formal methodologies aimed at interrupting and foregrounding the cultural politics of that intimate address, such as cut-ups, aleatory practices, non-narrative prose techniques, and parataxis, these poems mediate the tensions between local pleasure and global capital through the desirous and politicized spectacle of the pop star.

"As Julia Bloch turns her razor-sharp gaze to American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, she adopts the beseeching tone of a fan and the intimate address of a best girl confidante. All women know what it's like to be watched, but for Kelly, it's that scary feeling upped a notch, like the viewers' eyes have been pumped full of steroids. The gaze works both ways: the ghost of Kelly Clarkson follows Bloch everywhere, from San Francisco girl bars to Midwestern family reunions. For all their complexity of diction, there's a touching simplicity to Bloch's poems. By taking Kelly seriously, on her own terms, Bloch moves beyond the safety of 'camp' into a realm of genuine tragedy and love. It's a stunning collection."—Dodie Bellamy

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780981497563
Publisher: Sidebrow Books
Publication date: 04/03/2012
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 81
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author


Julia Bloch grew up in Northern California and Sydney, Australia, and studied at Carleton College, Mills College, and the University of Pennsylvania. From 2006 to 2011 she co- curated the Emergency reading series in Philadelphia. She is the recipient of the San Francisco Foundation's Joseph Henry Jackson Literary Award and the William Carlos Williams Prize for Poetry. In 2008, her poem "The Selfist" was adapted by composer James Falconi and performed by the Network for New Music at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. In addition to three chapbooks, her poems, essays, and reviews have recently appeared in Journal of Modern Literature, AUFGABE, P-Queue, Sibila (translated into Portuguese), and elsewhere. She is an editor of Jacket2 and lives in Southern California, where she teaches literature and gender studies at the Bard College MAT program.
From the B&N Reads Blog
Page 1 of

Customer Reviews