This Is Only Delay: The Celebratory Epideictic and the Act-Like in Mary Szybist’s Annunciations

Abstract

This article close reads two of Mary Szybist's poems that engage with the scene of the biblical annunciation, and complicate the conventional celebratory perception of that event. It analyzes how Szybist's poems leverage the performative aspect of lyric poetry to challenge and suspend the foreclosed, fatalistic outcome typically associated with the annunciation. Through readdressing the annunciation’s narrative through lyrical performativity, this reading of the poems prompts readers to reconsider the distribution and attribution of agency in the annunciation scene. Additionally, it thereby allows for the reader to consider how predetermined and celebratory declarations may be inappropriate or unwarranted.