Comments on: Poetic-isms

By: Joseph Hutchison

Joseph Hutchison — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:12:47 +0000

Matt, I am stung that you think I’m mean! That aside, you should reevaluate your notion that “an experimental poetry craze” is not sweeping the nation. As noted today on his blog, Ron Silliman—the most visible advocate (along with Charles Bernstein) of post-avant writing—has just been tapped to judge the William Carlos Williams Award for the Poetry Society of America. I don’t object to this at all, but it indicates the growing influence of this kind of poetry.
As for the “don’t read it if you don’t like it” approach—well, poetry isn’t television. I read all kinds of poetry because often enough I discover poets who knock my socks off. That doesn’t mean I have to swallow it all with a smile, or stifle an opinion because it happens to be strongly felt.
Just to be clear, what I object to most is poetry that seems written for no other reason than to illustrate a theory. Just yesterday I put up a post on my own blog in which I was mean about a poem by the neo-formalist Richard Kenney. I have no beef with Kenney in particular, but his poem came to me via email as part of The Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day series, and it struck me as written for no other reason than to illustrate the author’s facility with perfect rhyme—so naturally the result is facile.
All that said, I’m always happy to lift a glass and toast the slipperiness of language!
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By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:43:50 +0000

Joseph, it would be easier for me to agree with your basic point if you weren’t so mean. Also–paint, stone, metal, and air are all physical things, whereas language isn’t, and is therefore more slippery in many ways. It’s true that words are all we have if we’re going to say anything, and I’m comfortable living with that, but I also like being open-minded about other ideas. Besides, if you don’t like it, don’t read it. It can easily be avoided. It’s not as if an experimental poetry craze is sweeping the nation.
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By: Michael Gushue

Michael Gushue — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:39:10 +0000

Do not forget that a poem, even though it is composed in the language of information, is not used in the language-game of giving information.
-Wittgenstein, Zettel 160
I suspect that all poets feel at some level this anxiety — that what they’re doing isn’t information, but something else, and pinning down what that something else could be isn’t possible in any permanent way.
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By: Joseph Hutchison

Joseph Hutchison — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:15:55 +0000

“Talk of poetry as communication worries poets and critics for a variety of reasons, some good, some not. Those who view language itself as essentially suspect will see that definition as either naive or deceptive.”
My recommendation for “poets” and “critics” (the particular sub-sub-group of these to which the author refers richly deserve their quotation marks) who are worried by talk of poetry as communication is that they become visual artists or instrumental musicians. Then they can lecture their colleagues on how much they “suspect” paint, or stone, or metal, or the way air flows through a flute. And maybe they can get a few of their like-minded pals to sign on to their movement: Stupidism.
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By: Don Share

Don Share — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 01:39:19 +0000

Thank you, Johannes. Makes sense, and I rather suspected as much.
(Laibach’s Let It Be comes to mind as a good bit of anti-retrogardism!)
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By: Johannes Goransson

Johannes Goransson — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:07:41 +0000

Swedish retrogardism has more in common with American New Formalism (from the 80s) than Laibach and the Slovenians.
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