The Literature of Ecstasy Issue

An issue of Ploughshares from Winter 1990-91, guest-edited by Gerald Stern. Ploughshares, a journal of new writing, is guest-edited serially by prominent writers who explore different personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles.

This classic issue, guest-edited by award-winning poet Gerald Stern, explores the “literature of ecstasy.” In his Introduction, Stern writes, “Ecstasy not only means to be ‘placed outside,’ that is, to be ‘placed outside the body,’ but it means—also—to be displaced; and an understanding of the ecstatic mode, in all its sense, would take into account both of these meanings. Thus it denotes a state of exaltation in which one transcends oneself and, as well, a kind of dislocation.”

The writers exploring this theme include Philip Levine, Li-Young Lee, Jerome Rothenberg, Sharon Olds, Robert Pinsky, Jean Valentine, and Stanley Plumly.