Poetics of Value proposes the survival of fugitive temporalities as a methodology for Marxism, exceeding the temporal forms of both value and its Marxist criticism.

Throughout value-form theory, the present is understood as a homogenizing form of subsumption, determining all lives in its commodification of time. Elliot C. Mason employs the “fugitive” imaginary of black studies to locate other temporalities that antagonize the present. Through close readings of four contemporary poets, Mason finds an exposure to social temporalities that exceed the productive time of value.