A Note on My Title

I stole my title from Sandra M. Gilbert’s Acts of Attention (1972), a study of D. H. Lawrence’s poetry. Gilbert’s title derives from a sentence in Lawrence’s preface to Harry Crosby’s Chariot of the Sun (1936):

The essential quality of poetry is that it makes a new effort of attention, and “discovers” a new world within the known world.

A poem can be an act of attention, so can an essay, a painting, a photograph, a movie. Great writers and artists make a real effort of attention.