Phillip B. Williams
December 18, 2020
I’m starting this piece with more questions than answers, with more eagerness to investigate than to disclose, and in that investigation I hope to reveal how inquiry, doubt, and uncertainty make for useful practices when writing a poem and thinking about ourselves within the literary tradition.
I’m not even sure if what I have come up with makes sense, but I would like to test out my ideas on you all in the hopes that we can discover something together.
I’ll begin with Missy Elliott’s 2001 album
Miss E . . . So Addictive. By this time, Missy Misdemeanor Elliott had already stationed herself as the number one innovator in hip-hop. Paired with her frequent collaborator, Timbaland, the two had a maddening year with this particular album because of how its production and lyrical dexterity pushed beyond their prior innovations.