Notes on the Lyric and the Aurora Borealis

What happens when we consider the lyric “I” as a loose construction, influenced by and always in relation to someone or something else? This hybrid essay traces relationality and experimentation in the use of the lyric I through the poetry of Claudia Rankine, Alice Notley, and dg nanouk okpik, among others. While enacting its own lyric logic through a combination of literary analysis as well as first-person narrative and observation, the essay conceptualizes the lyric as a space for relating and gathering, where an I can discover and disrupt its limits.