Sign & Breath - (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Sign & Breath is a new critical anthology that takes a different approach to exploring these questions: What is poetry? What defines voice? Featuring a range of contemporary artists, many of whom work across different mediums and genres, Sign & Breath introduces the reader to one page that sings in any genre - prose, fiction, poetry, spoken word, hybrid forms, and song - across diverse traditions.

Rather than define poetry as a genre with conventions, traditions, codes, and modalities, this book features poetry as a faculty that thrums in all written and spoken art. Readers are introduced to a text followed by a discussion with the author about creating the piece, ties to creative lineage, and the definition of voice through their practice.

This anthology contributes to the dialogue among genres which will reframe the understanding of poetry as an aesthetic experience of language. With one page that sings in any genre, Sign & Breath presents a new, inclusive perspective on poetry while two questions remain: Do we have a clearer understanding of what defines poetry? Do we have a clearer understanding of voice?

Review Quotes

"Sign and Breath is an embodied practice centering on the interconnectedness of bodies and breath, inviting readers into a vibrant collection of voices that engage deeply with personal, political, and artistic histories." -- Melissa Parrish, The Massachusetts Review

About the Author

Shanta Lee is an award-winning artist, writer across genres, author, and public intellectual actively participating in the cultural discourse with work that has been widely featured. Winner of the Abel Meeropol Social Justice award and a 2024 National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellow (New England), "Hallowed Hunted Body" is included in, This Is How They Teach You How to Want It...The Slaughter: A Field Guide for the Hunted & the Hunter, The Dead-Alive, The Live-Dead Ones, The...(Harbor Editions, 2024). Philip Brady's newest book is The Elsewhere: Poems & Poetics (Broadstone, 2021). He is the author of two essay collections, Phantom Signs and By Heart from the University of Tennessee Press; a book-length poem, To Banquet with the Ethiopians, a memoir, To Prove My Blood, and three previous books of poetry. He has edited a critical book on James Joyce and two anthologies of contemporary poetry.