Abstract

As an acknowledgment of Penn Szittya's affection and support for the Lannan Center, its founder and former director (2006-2009) Mark McMorris has written a verbal portrait of Penn. The inclusion of a contribution by a distinguished poet and scholar of contemporary poetry and poetics honors Penn's belief in promoting the social value of all poetic culture, whether medieval or modern. Building on Penn's examination of the Omne bonum manuscript, as described in Cruz's essay, McMorris draws inspiration from Penn's thesis about the text as "conceptual palimpsest" to find a structure for describing both Penn's life and the relationship between poetics and social practice. McMorris's own consideration of this manuscript and its scribe also allows him to develop the interactions between writing and drawing, reading and seeing, text and universe.

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