When truth is deconstructed, how does this affect our concept of the
person and the direction of thought? What happens to our relation with
language or a community? This paper explores recent poetic investigations
into the relation between the material world of the everyday and the
ineffable. Taking as example, the analytic lyric of Rae Armantrout and
Fanny Howe, it examines how their work may be read through the social
and spiritual philosophies of Simone Weil. More specifically, it focuses
on the role of gender in embodied thought, particularly in terms of sexuality,
language, desire, motherhood, and violence.
