“Benjamin Lee’s Poetics of Emergence reveals how experimental poets sought to make sense of the social transformations un­derway in postwar United States, giving poetic shape to experi­ences that could be felt before they could be known. A powerful work of literary criticism and a lucid distillation of affect theory, it suggests that these poets’ responses to their own histori­cal present might also help us decipher how we feel about our own.”—Brian Glavey, The Wallflower Avant-Garde: Modernism, Sexuality, and Queer Ekphrasis

“Combining cultural history, affect theory, and nuanced close readings, Benjamin Lee’s incisive, beautifully written book persuasively argues for a different postwar American poetry—one profoundly atten­tive to the lived contradictions of Cold War culture, to how history feels just as it is emerging. A brilliant, compelling new ap­proach to the endlessly vexing question of poetry and politics.”—Andrew Epstein, author, Attention Equals Life: The Pursuit of the Everyday in Contemporary Poetry and Culture