John Keene

Contemporaries Essays

An Escaped Slave and a Good Person

10.06.23

One of the joys of encountering John Keene’s work is reading his many interviews. Out of respect for his interviewers and readers, time and again Keene finds ways to expand…

An Abstract Architecture: John Keene’s Counternarratives

10.06.23

“Long hours in the study of any text will reveal inner, unseen contours, an abstract architecture,” writes John Keene.1 But even long hours of studying the stories and novellas that…

Passagens Estranhas: Translating the Obscene with Hilda Hilst and John Keene

10.06.23

“Oh, how delicious and practical it is that people think us strange . . . ” — Hilda Hilst, Letters from a Seducer, translated by John Keene At the outset…

John Keene’s Keywording

10.06.23

*** “In the mark event, you enter your signature.” So begins Seismosis, John Keene’s 2006 book of poetry, published as a collaboration with the artist Christopher Stackhouse. The quoted line…

The Black Experimental Impulse: Returning to Seismosis

10.06.23

A student in my recent “Twenty-First Century African American Literature” seminar insisted, “We should stop using the phrase ‘Experimental Literature.’ All creative writing is an experiment.” This is true, but…

Unembodied Blackness and Social Critique: John Keene’s Annotations

10.06.23

One of the most remarkable features of John Keene’s thoroughly remarkable 1995 publication Annotations is that it manages to register as a distinctly African American work without even attempting to…

“A Leap into the Void”: A Conversation with John Keene

10.06.23

This interview took place over Zoom on January 26, 2023. It has been edited for clarity. BME: I wanted to start by talking about your generosity — as an artist,…

Sui Generis: On the Genius of John Keene

10.06.23

Those times when I stareat the blank white screen or pageI may despair that I cannot showor testify how much I love blackpeople and want other black peopleand all people…

Severance, Stuckness, and the Hurricane Fix

09.19.23

This essay focuses on a fleeting climate crisis event in Ling Ma’s 2018 novel Severance. For super smart critical work on Severance you should go to the Post-45 cluster on…

On Being Stuck at Customs: The Poems of Solmaz Sharif

09.19.23

Solmaz, have you thanked your executioner today? — “Social Skills Training”1 These are the first questions I received after giving a virtual talk on my book Climate Lyricism: Aren’t the…

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