Michel Chaouli, former committee member, has published a new book on “poetic criticism”. Written in the mode of a philosophical essay, Chaouli’s Something Speaks to Me (2024, University of Chicago Press) draws on a wide range of writers, artists, and thinkers to describe a mode of criticism based on three moments: Something speaks to me. I must tell you about it. But I don’t know how. The heart of criticism, no matter its form, lies in these surges of thoughts and feelings. Criticism arises from the fundamental need to share what overwhelms us.

Reflecting on these dimensions of poetic experience, Something Speaks to Me is less concerned with joining academic debates than communicating the urgency of criticism.