Laughter and Knowledge in Contemporary Poetry

Twenty-first-century poets use humor to examine and convey different kinds of knowledge—cultural, scientific, and emotional. Laughter in the work of poets like Raymond McDaniel, Stephanie Burt, Cathy Park Hong, Albert Goldbarth, Kim Rosenfield, Jamaal May, Patricia Lockwood, and Lucille Clifton prompts us to examine competing epistemologies. These poets examine how we exchange the material of laughter, and expose the ways that affective responses can determine what we think we know. They show how laughter can re-shape our sense of canons and render unfamiliar material accessible, expanding our literary knowledge and the sympathetic capacities that knowledge carries with it. They demonstrate how laughter breaks down categories like “science” and “literature,” expanding the kinds of knowledge that we value as “fact.” At the same time, they warn that laughter’s power to heal trauma or mediate other minds is limited, and that we should not trust humorous insights too far.