American Pragmatism and Poetic Practice: Crosscurrents from Emerson to Susan Howe - Paperbackby Kristen Case (Author) Innovative study that sees much of twentieth century American poetry as enacting, in language, pragmatic philosophy. Wittgenstein wrote that "philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry." American poetry has long engaged questions about subject and object, self and environment, reality and imagination, real and ideal that have dominated the Western philosophical tradition since the Enlightenment. Kristen