Matthea Harvey: Imaginary Worlds (July 2004)

If poems create other worlds, Matthea Harvey asks, then what is the relation of the invented world to ours?  Does it veil, unveil, bisect, or circle our world like a second moon?  Does it serve the purpose of commentary or escapism, utopianism or perversion? Harvey considers these and other questions as she examines imaginary worlds in the writing of Margaret Cavendish, Rose Auslander, Gertrude Stein, Edwin E. Abbot, Italo Calvino, Anne Carson, Terrance Hayes and Henri Michaux.