tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post1618496206240777024..comments2024-01-05T20:26:44.857-08:00Comments on Thinking Again: Beyond Avant Garde/Mainstream and Back Againmark wallacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-15182230216203657912009-04-25T04:58:00.000-07:002009-04-25T04:58:00.000-07:00I think notions of becoming or process move beyond...I think notions of becoming or process move beyond the avant-garde's emphasis on dialectical struggle. I think that's a notion that was a useful gift from the Moderns, maybe Pound, certainly Williams, and people coming from that direction, like Olson and Duncan later. Anyway, the idea of process grants you a fat license to not develop a voice, to let each new poem find its form/voice, because it implies a sort of organicism. Which, today, can be a "machine" organicism, given how poets have the models of Mandelbrot or Markov and so on as comparisons (or tools) for their practice.JP Craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06904822536912752544noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-31784737517828636112009-04-22T17:09:00.000-07:002009-04-22T17:09:00.000-07:00Hi Brian:
Johannes Gorannson's 2008 post on "What...Hi Brian:<br /><br />Johannes Gorannson's 2008 post on "What He Learned At Iowa" should answer the question quite succinctly. I linked to it in a post last year on my blog so you could find it that way or through his blog directly. But let's just say it all starts with the concept of "slightly imagey."mark wallacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-68420832998709951582009-04-22T06:55:00.000-07:002009-04-22T06:55:00.000-07:00Mark, as to those "few ideas": would you be willin...Mark, as to those "few ideas": would you be willing to elucidate further?brian (baj) salcherthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-69921232382300256062009-04-21T07:49:00.000-07:002009-04-21T07:49:00.000-07:00Alas, Tom, I'm afraid there's a great deal of inte...Alas, Tom, I'm afraid there's a great deal of interest in AWP in doing that. It turns out that the avant garde, despite its foolishness and excess which we're now glad we've gotten beyond, did have a few ideas that can help people write a more contemporary and philosophical lyric poem.mark wallacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-32854925939266908342009-04-20T22:53:00.000-07:002009-04-20T22:53:00.000-07:00all very useful questions, mark, but is there much...all very useful questions, mark, but is there much interest in theorizing the avant garde at the AWP?<br /><br />t.tmorangehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13540323590390887131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-27873019134978313572009-04-17T08:20:00.000-07:002009-04-17T08:20:00.000-07:00p.s typoe - that's "YOUR" thoughtful list, not "ou...p.s typoe - that's "YOUR" thoughtful list, not "our"...Henry Gouldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06763188178644726622noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-76032505735653645612009-04-17T08:06:00.000-07:002009-04-17T08:06:00.000-07:00This sounds like a good idea. our thoughtful list...This sounds like a good idea. our thoughtful list of questions underlines how useful it could be.<br /><br />I wouldn't expect anything close to a consensus of opinion to emerge - just more supposed alignments & affiliations, based on what comes across as the most convincing view(s).<br /><br />Here are a couple of areas that come to my mind as worth exploring :<br /><br />1) the shifting & conflicted status of theory itself in relation to practice. The resistance of artists, & the art-making process, to theoretical abstraction (alienation).<br /><br />2) the idea of "experiment" in poetry as an epiphenomenon of 20th-century cultural & industrial "modernization" in general. <br /><br />3) "Hybrid" as an umbrella term for poets whose actual practice is a traditional combination of "craft technique" (imitation of fashionable styles) & professional (academic) advancement.<br /><br />4) "Experimental" or "avant-garde" as umbrella terms for poets whose actual practice is a traditional combination of "craft technique" (imitation of fashionable styles) & professional (academic) advancement.<br /><br />5) Art as a process of surpassing, enfolding, transcending, humanizing, personalizing, individualizing, technique in general (imitation). Art as "individuation". Encapsulated in the classical aphorism, "Ars est celare artem" (Art is to hide art).Henry Gouldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06763188178644726622noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-27101317979025369712009-04-17T07:54:00.000-07:002009-04-17T07:54:00.000-07:00Brian (apologies for my wrong form of address),
T...Brian (apologies for my wrong form of address),<br /><br />The hybrid does posit itself as a kind of synthesis, and most of the hybrid anthologies do think of the poems they re-present as syntheses of a sort. There is nothing inherently wrong in this, of course. But it's much less bridge-building and much more more boundary- (or distinction-) making. Nothing wrong with that, in itself, either. The problem comes when one thinks one is building bridges when in fact one is making further distinctions--this, I think, is the case with much hybrid thinking.<br /><br />Your own notion of the hybrid is, to my mind, more interesting, and, frankly, more descriptively accurate: LOTS of poets are hybrid now in that they employ varied aesthetics in their various poems and projects. That's excellent, and a very interesting phenomenon which should be further explored--but it is not what the hybrid truly promotes or is really about.<br /><br />Best,<br />MikeMichael Theunehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08121953357805380434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-84412658264869698942009-04-16T20:17:00.000-07:002009-04-16T20:17:00.000-07:00Mike,
Your reading of Silliman's post does make...Mike, <br /><br />Your reading of Silliman's post <I>does</I> make more sense than mine. Still, American Hybrid (Third-Way, Elliptical, or ???) <I>could</I> be all-inclusive and not just relegated to Mainstream poetry. From my perspective, I've written several Language poems, but I doubt I would ever write a Flarf or Conceptual poem. I simply do not have an affinity for those modes of writing. I prefer not being labeled because (in spite of how my MFA experience influenced me) I never did try to cultivate a voice. Each poem has a voice. If a hybrid poem has to exhibit a synthesis of some kind, then generally I do not write hybrid poems. So maybe I have the whole idea wrong. Perhaps if I read Burt's definition of Elliptical--don't know.<br /><br />Brian (but Baj is fine)brian (baj) salcherthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-62135657591602770702009-04-16T11:10:00.000-07:002009-04-16T11:10:00.000-07:00Baj,
But don't you think this is--in part, when i...Baj,<br /><br />But don't you think this is--in part, when it's at its worst--what's problematic about the idea of the American hybrid: the hybrid seems to posit itself as a kind resolution of poetic and aesthetic encampments and skirmishes, but in fact it ends up creating its own. For example, "American Hybrid" certainly excludes some other major trends, movements, projects, and poets, including work by conceptual poets Goldsmith or Bok.<br /><br />I don't think Silliman's main point is that Swensen is sometimes conceptual or flarf--rather, he is pointing out that in contast to conceptual artists like Goldsmith and Bok, Swensen is in many ways a very traditional, or much more mainstream, writer. Silliman, I think, is clarifying a distinction that the hybrid theoretically does away with, but in reality maintains...<br /><br />MikeMichael Theunehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08121953357805380434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-50152941436280348102009-04-15T20:26:00.000-07:002009-04-15T20:26:00.000-07:00Whatever an author feels comfortable with. I thin...Whatever an author feels comfortable with. I think many have grown tired of encampments and skirmishes. Earlier this evening on my Kyphotic Hermit blog I posted "Post-Industrial World and Poetry". It is a single paragraph, but it answers some of the questions in your post. There is a link to KH in the sidebar of my node blog: Baj's Lodges (aka Rhodingeedaddee). One poem I wrote last year mixes regular words with phonetic words. In 2007 I wrote one that uses field theory and colors. Todd Swift recently published in Manhatten Review an essay on 16 young British poets. I found a poem by one of those poets online. It is a short serious rhymed poem lightly written. I rather liked it. Silliman, as you may know, in a recent post wonders if Cole Swensen might be a conceptual or even a flarf poet sometimes. Interesting, but does it matter?<br /><br />-<br />I think the verification word is:<br />unitiobrian (baj) salcherthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com