“Tawny Grammar”: Anne Simpson’s Exploration of the Other

This study examines the poetry of Anne Simpson. Given that there has been no full-length study of her poetry, the thesis deals heavily in close readings of poems from all four collections: Light Falls Through You, Loop, Quick, and Is. Developing the term “tawny grammar,” used in her essays, I explore how this altered language requires Simpson’s poetry to develop “tawny” poetic forms and “tawny” movements of perspective. The shifting and unstable nature of the “tawny” allows Simpson’s poetry to address the Other, particularly the violent experiences of Others, in an ethical way. I suggest that Simpson’s punctuation, form, and movement create an ethically motivated encounter with the Other. Since her poetry deeply desires to protect the Other, yet is unable to alleviate someone else’s pain, Simpson often places the ethical responsibility on the reader by leaving the endings open, pivoting any given poem towards the desire for change. Building on the philosophies of Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, and Maurice Blanchot, Simpson works within the belief that language is inherently selffocused, and so needs to be subverted. Since poetry exists in language, in order to overcome its self-centred nature Simpson also relies on form and movement to call attention to the dangers of a fixed or closed understanding of the Other, which also demands that the poem avoid finality. Relying on her understanding of Federico Garcia Lorca’s duende, Simpson creates poems that desire to exist between two opposites, allowing each to maintain their individual identity, yet since Simpson’s opposites are often self/Other, language/chaos, life/death, her poems consistently risk the subjectivity-free space of Levinas’s il y a, where the presence-of-absence is overwhelming.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor dc:publisher

Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Yarn, Callyn Mary Michele

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Purdham, Medrie

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Riegel, Christian
• Trussler, Michael

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

https://doi.org/10.82465/5026

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uregina.scholaris.ca:10294/6533