Artless
Book •
Brenda Shaughnessy's 'Artless' is a poem that deploys playful sonic repetition and inventive neologisms to interrogate the heart's contradictions and absences.
Through tercets and recurring 'less' sounds, the poem creates a formal cohesion that both defamiliarizes and deepens emotional resonance.
Its speaker balances humor and heartbreak, using negation and reversals to explore love, absence, and the limits of poetic description.
The poem showcases Shaughnessy's capacity to invent language and form suited to a poem's psychological needs, making the 'artless' heart simultaneously elemental and richly articulated.
Published in The New Yorker in 2011, it is frequently noted for its musicality and tonal agility.
Through tercets and recurring 'less' sounds, the poem creates a formal cohesion that both defamiliarizes and deepens emotional resonance.
Its speaker balances humor and heartbreak, using negation and reversals to explore love, absence, and the limits of poetic description.
The poem showcases Shaughnessy's capacity to invent language and form suited to a poem's psychological needs, making the 'artless' heart simultaneously elemental and richly articulated.
Published in The New Yorker in 2011, it is frequently noted for its musicality and tonal agility.
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Maya C. Popa
Maya C. Popa Reads Brenda Shaughnessy
