Prooftexts

The perpection in the 1930s that Rahel Bluwstein's poems were "natural" and textually unencumbered is to some extent reiterated in contemporary criticism. This article revisits some of Bluwstein's poetry and its reception, as well as her poetics, making the case for a far more complex reading of her work.

I analyze the relationship between her early poetics and Labor politics and the implicit textual-historical position of the speaker, complicating assumptions of these relationships and positions, and positing a poetics of "aftergrowth" that is neither an avoidance of textual complexity nor simply a failure to master Bialikian poetics, but a textured response to the demands and limitations of the cultural moment.