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Poetry. Sianne Ngai's writings use, among others, devices of analogy and repetition to investigate philosophical questions about language. The pressure she puts on her conventional use of devices yield a third, and somewhat more enigmatic, trick of language, which I would call migration. Like birds of formal gestures, Ngai's poetry and prose patterns, through distancing, question about valued categories of knowledge. Relationships of science, language, and the body are part and parcel...
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Poetry. Sianne Ngai's writings use, among others, devices of analogy and repetition to investigate philosophical questions about language. The pressure she puts on her conventional use of devices yield a third, and somewhat more enigmatic, trick of language, which I would call migration. Like birds of formal gestures, Ngai's poetry and prose patterns, through distancing, question about valued categories of knowledge. Relationships of science, language, and the body are part and parcel to the patterned movements of her texts, which please this reader above all because of their lucid sensibility, skepticism, and wit-- Carla Harryman.