I received the following email from Stephen McLaughlin this afternoon, who asked me to post this here:
“One morning about a month ago, I received a message from the Poetics List that began something like ‘Announcing Issue 1 of Broken Caterpillar. Featuring new poems by . . . followed by a list of 45 poets’ names. I’d seen one of them on Silliman’s blogroll, but the rest were just flat names. Barely names — ethereal text strings. Keep in mind that I receive hundreds of these announcements per year.
I should note, at this point, that I fully support small press publishing and small press writing — but when you step back (as has been discussed on Ron’s blog among other places), the larger picture is funny. Funny as in ha-ha, not nyah-nyah.
So I started a collection of poet names. Once I had around 1500, I asked my friend Jim Carpenter to send me a batch of 5,000 poems composed by Erika T. Carter, his ludicrously advanced poetry generation software. These poems aren’t simply random cutups of randomly selected texts. As you can see by reading them, they each have a thematic & stylistic unity unparalleled (so far as I know) in the field of algorithmic poetry generation. As numerous commentors have noted, it’s difficult to tell whether some of these things were written by man or machine. Surprisingly, many of the poems in the magazine are actually ‘good.’ Sort of.
I then wrote a little script to combine my lists of poets and my list of poems and create the LaTeX code I used to generate the PDF itself. A fast and simple process.
My list of poets, I should note, was compiled by hand. Every name was copied and pasted from one of several online sources. The script I wrote removed 99% of duplicate names from my final list, but, naturally, a few repeats got through. For example, ‘Bob Cobbing’ and ‘Bob Cobbing’ would be considered different names. Furthermore, there are numerous inappropriate (non-poet) inclusions, as well as many outrageous exclusions. For my part, I find it numbingly hilarious to read blog comments in which people sincerely complain about their or their friends’ names’ exclusion from an anthology that doesn’t exist.
I’ve also made a followup post here: http://www.forgodot.com/2008/10/issue-1-
polite-clarification.html”
Stephen McLaughlin
Rotterdam, NL
I am amazed that people didn’t realize the poems were written by a computer, but maybe I’ve been programming computers to write poetry for too long; I could somewhat see the algorithm behind it.
Still, it’s very, very well done; kudos.
Sigh. It’s like finding out that Santa isn’t real…
And — for the record — since I listed names that weren’t in there — I wasn’t complaining. I just found it funny that the names were of the dead and cannonized, famous mid-career contemporaries and people with a healthy Internet presence. In speculating why/what the purpose/commentary of the anthology was/is — almost everyone talked about whether or not they were in it or if they were angry they were in it, etc., etc. No one really talked about the work within the “anthology,” which, after seeing the “cut-up” and “flarfish” tendencies of many writers, I must say is not much different. In fact, some of the things written into the algorithm seemed quite advanced, tonally — and, if it is true it was written by a computer, quite, quite advanced. I’m interested, especially, in the formulas that guided rhetorical structure, which, as a writer, I’m always struggling with. Too many “yous” and “Is” and the disembodied “I” becomes tedious time after time. The poems written by the computer weren’t tedious and used a phrasing/rhetorical structure — mastered it, actually, which kind of obliterates the question. It’s really quite fascinating.
I guess my only real complaint is that instead of letting people guess, commentate, speculate, etc., etc., — good Christ, for at least the week-end — either the threat of legal action or an ego gnashing at its clever, but aching bit — we now all know. This has become reducible. And sadly, not as romantic. Still interesting, but not as interesting — as people have noted — as it would have been had the commentary, a vital part of the experiment, were allowed to continue sans engineer’s confession. The immediacy of this medium, which, in my opinion, fatally wounds good poetry everyday, also wounds what could have been something that grew huge and memorable. I doubt it will now.
And who knows, maybe this letter is a joke. Maybe you’re saddened that people didn’t think it was a brilliant manifesto and you’ve invented the story and that someone cared enough to craft 3,000+ texts in secret without broadcasting them everywhere. I wish, I wish, I wish.
I thought the poems were lovely. And “Issue 1″ is still the best book of poems that I’ve read in a long time.
I’m going to go back to my own relative obscurity with the cheese and pies and the turning of the leaves….I enjoyed participating for this moment, though.
Dear Chris, (OK I have to keep posting),
I just wrote another reply that I don’t know if they’ll put up because I forgot to type an e-mail, but it’s fascinating and scary to me that I like the poems more than most “poetry.” Doing a little googling, it appears the author of the program wrote the program to say “fuck you” to the “academy,” and all sorts of other political manifesto-type stuff to piss off the “poetry establishment” (whoever that is), and also, I might add, the avant-garde, to show that what they’re writing isn’t much different from a computer generated text. Are they? Certainly — in process, I guess, but it really is “flarf” in a sense — this project.
I like the awkwardness of the phrasing, the repetition of seemingly unimportant words, the rhetorical structure, and the “overall resonance” of the poems are, for me, quite lovely. The dislocation of language and phrasing from what a person or how a person might be expected to write is something that is an element of craft in innovative poetry. Does it matter that a computer wrote them? Isn’t that what the avant-garde was asking for — the ultimate death of the author? Again, I think they’re lovely, and I think they stand — no matter who the author. But that’s just me.
When people read poems and want the experience of the author or somehow think that knowing the author is important, I want to puke. I think this may be what I’m looking for because it really does just cut the author out of the loop…
Cheers!
Now, what about Issue 2? It will take work to beat this
Appropriation: 2 Case Studies
1917, Marcel Duchamp – The Richard Mutt Case
2008, Stephen McLaughlin – The For Godot Case
http://lesfigues.blogspot.com/2008/10/appropriation-2-case-studies.html
Signed urinal = art; therefore Issue 1 (signed poems) = art. That’s what I call a century of progress!
This project is sorta interesting. It would be moreso if it were the late 90s and any of this technology were new, and it had an actual point like the Sokal hoax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair). Sokal followed through make his point.
This Issue 1 thing might have more bite if McLaughlin would say that all our poems, or even our names, or poetry is boring, or even that he likes to experiment computer-generated poetry. Instead he’s all like, “no, I like indie poetry and I like poets.” Computer-generated poetry has existed since the 1984 Racter book, if not before (http://www.ubu.com/historical/racter/index.html).
Instead, the point seems to be that McLaughlin gets a lot of emails that announce new issues of journals–lists to which he no doubt have signed up for–and that when looks at the tables of contests he just sees “flat names.”
That he measures his single recalled name from Silliman’s blogroll–instead of, say, his bookshelf or a library’s or a web browser–is also telling. I imagine so many people out there getting their ideas about poetry from Silliman’s blog, maybe a couple others, so earnest about writing in modes that are just avanty enough to fit in, to be part of the poetry community, and then think a project like this is bound to give them some type of reknown.
I do wish this project was more inventive than it is. But all it does is get me depressed about the sad state of uninventiveness and utter lack of ideas American poets find themselves in. The aesthetic projects of American poets are just as rarefied and detached as many poets’ reactionary left-wing politics: there’s no stakes involved, no gesture to larger audiences; it’s a pleasureless self-licking ice cream cone.
The chatter that this project started is useful to sort out who knows what conceptual art is, of how sophisticated one person is. If you’re interested in that sort of thing.
Meanwhile, we all wish–or I guess I should just say I–that we could come up with a poem like this:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19971.
Thanks for the post, Daniel. It is interesting that this is unfolding as so much as been falling down around us. As I said earlier, it’s a great mirror for our times, and you point out some of the reasons why. Particularly this line: “there’s no stakes involved, no gesture to larger audiences; it’s a pleasureless self-licking ice cream cone.”
Not that what anyone can agree about what is or is not at stake, but certainly something particular to the work. Or, dare I say it, some risk? Some risk of saying something? Either conceptually or otherwise?
Just a thot.
Yes, I suppose American poets have the privilege to topple apple carts. What I think I mean is that if the concept behind this project is just marketing–then it’s just kinda sad. If this were some comment on how everyone’s poems suck or are the same, even as one of the million people in this thing, then I can get behind that and admire it.
Instead, it’s something else, right? I think it’s a pretty good commentary on how paranoid poets like myself are–let’s make it about that!
I’m actually using some of the lines from my “poem”…hell, I might even read my “poem” at some upcoming events for shits and giggles. Because that’s what it really is…a giggle. Those who are put out, put down, put off or bemoaning the state of poetry and poets, really should lighten up. I’ve already heard from a number of poets pissed off that they weren’t in the “anthology.” God knows what that says about their egos.
True about poet egos. I think if it was left at a giggle, I’d feel the same way. But instead, the Sillimaniacs of the poetry world get all theoretical up in here, waxing on and off about the Poetry Community. The three-angle dressing room mirror of poets speaking on behalf of poets is what this discussion is about. As for getting worked up–I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m don’t need to get worked up to bemoan the state of the current poetry scene. It just is, and every once in awhile I think it’s important to point out the self-appointed post avant poetaster emperors have no clothes.
“the state of the current poetry scene” (as is on the interwebs): bemoan
the state of current poetry: clap hands, right?
(does one need the other?–hand that is…)
Hey look, I stole my poem back! With a little help from the gary leeming cutup machine–
A WIND OF A KIND
overspend,
clasped meadow-bee!
all is profit-making
hesitate above a pronoun
by Little Red Liberty
this and kind of
are profitable
like much recollecting
which a bright
posthumous year winds
solemn
we here like the little
that a thought is after
we are unavailable
a reef for itself
as a mist followed
***
What’s up, post-avant??
Looks like a cease and desisted has been drafted:
http://vowelmovers.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/letter-to-the-editors/
There are some lists whose names –if one is upset about being in an anthology of this kind–one may be glad not to find one’s listed among–
as see the below video re prisons and prisoners in the USA from Brasscheck TV and a little story that is true abt the creation of one form of an anthology–as truly, think on how many are the infinite possibilities! i made a little zine anthology ages ago in which all the art work and writing etc was done by quite different writers and artists–and al had interesting names–and all of them were myself–
yet persons who purchased it were amazed at the variety of works included–and the newness of these names–to their ears and eyes–and some of the truly wild styles some had–
yes–did one ever tell them who the “real” “author” is?
why of course not!–
for were not as they made those pieces those people in a sense truly existing and this is what gave such force and reality to their works–
yes
for –they had existed as they worked–and as they were read and looked at, all these–
who?–
here is one way to make an anthology of the writings and writers of a city–
“The man had been a cab driver for twelve years in Boston. He was an amphetamine addict, a “speed freak.” Speed optimised his efficiency and endurance on the job. As time and miles went by the taxi driver constructed a vast system of references–a language–made up of the city’s geography, people’s conversations and the signs he saw everywhere. As addiction, time, miles and signs accelerated it became evident that an apocalyptic crash was imminent. An uncanny conspiracy was afoot and the cab driver became wary of each passenger who hailed him. He never refused anyone a ride, because anyone or everyone could supply information. Finally the taxi driver decided he had enough information to go to the authorities. He went to the FBI building at Government Center and told them a dangerous conspiracy was threatening the whole city with chaos. When asked for evidence the taxi cab driver gave the agents the Boston Telephone Directory.
–’All the names are here.’”
from “Heroin is King, Reagan is God”
by Chirot
There are many ways to make anthologies, many ways to find names and create lists, and many a way also to “round up the usual suspects”–for a good old rendition flight–
to the tropical islands!!
“Guantanamera!!–” ah the strains of that song echo out over the old Guantanamo Bay, making the trees around the Famous Prison dance with the maddening allure of swaying hips–
Ah!! where someday America will reinstall the true meaning of Cuba Libre as just another wonderful drink at the very nice bars that line the newly upholstered Havana of the wet dreams of “entrepreneurs” in al the world’s oldest and newest professions, with a few other variations added, “just to celebrate,”– behind the very tightly closed doors, to be sure–!–yes–
For one may find in this atmosphere how prisons and anthologies, are they not, are in many ways related,while appearing on the surface also not to be so–
(the camouflage principle as used in literature–the uses of disguise, undercover tricks–the aly allusion to the Trojan Horse!–) (I can see her now, the Lenscrafter Lady of Liberty, winking, saying breathlessly, “you betcha!”)
On one side of the Bay the Prison and across from it, the Literary Houses–where anthologies pour forth of the incredibly heteronymic array of wildly varying in quality and style works of what is in fact a single very patient poet, a very old ex-prisoner of Castro’s who now makes up anthologies of a Poetry which has never existed until now–with all the patience of one who has spent eternities in the unlimited expanses of time of sentences which were never throughly made clear–”incomplete sentences” as the old prisoner poet thinks of them–in terms of that “grammatology of correction” which he has also begun to create as he paints away at the final images of the present collection–
if he cannot think of a name to affix to the poems and visual poems he is providing for his poets, he simply picks up old tattered copies of long out of date phone books, or the latest listings of names from the funeral parlors, the dedications of military cemeteries or the colorful sobriquets of the new breed of young professionals who sachet past him in the shimmering heat–
yes, for a wonderful Yankee publisher and editor, the old man is creating a whole fantasy world of Caribbean Poets, already to be packaged up and sent off to Miami and broadcast from there to all the known corners of the Free World, that giant sloppy and messily but cunningly inky octopus that has being busy with its eight arms in enfolding al the forgotten and by passed literaturess of previously “Unfree” peoples into its huge and heavy bosom, a Bosom to end all Bosoms, as vast and mysterious as that of its mother, the Sea–
The old ex-prisoner does this as he gazes out at the shining American prison across the bay–
so much more up-to-date than his old huants!! so much improved it is said, that he is very glad he was never sent there–
for will the world not always have prisons–just as much as poets–and may not the anthologies have become confused–so that anthologies of poets are of ones who should be in prison and those–as yet uncompiled anthologies–of the prisoners–might they not be those of the real poets–
or in fact they might all be mixed up–and some belong here and others there and stil others who knows might they not just be tossed iinto the shark infested waters–or simply –left out, to wander aimlessly and without knowing what kind of poetry they belong to until at last finding peace in a nice shady grove or alcove or bar–
where someone is sure to find them and tell them just what kind of poetry they are–
so one person’s anthology is another’s prison, and one person’s prison is indeed an anthology compiled by those who have been filling it with their ideas of prisoners–
but then–
Ah! to find one’s name on yet another list, included in yet another “collection,” rounded up with the usual suspects, subjected to yet more “harsh interrogations of the text,” battered about by yet more “probing of bodily embedded inscription and encryption cavities,” to be stood naked before the howling glistening healthy jowls of young men, women and dogs as one’s “gestural writings” are symbolically dismantled into the appropriate forms for further deconstruction brought on by the application of the electric “rock and roll” “Vitus’ Dance” torture, to be followed by the “rosy fingered dawn” of the near drowning in the waters of Oblivion, those perilous waters into which identity is thrust to the point almost of losing its authorial being, and becoming yet another “anonymous Wall scribbler of unspeakable perversity and criminality,” yet another “forgotten writer” lost in the sands of time . . .
Yes–to think on how many lists one’ s name is found this whole wide world, and in whose possesion!!
And then to see with whom else one is thrown into association with on these lists!!
And never to be told the exact reason why!!
And, worse than that–to be “mis quoted!” To have “one’s words taken out of context,” or “right out of one’s mouth,” or–shoved into one’s throat, words to choke on, words to strangle with, words to carry one down to the depths from which poetry springs forth as no more than the last screams of a once human body . . . the finality of poetry’s dying sounds in the stage setting of death, surrounded by onlookers who are noting down the time it takes to expire and fade away, whether it is with a a rattle or a whisper, a last murmured prayer or simply the sound of air escaping the broken wind pipe–the stove in ribs–the snapped spine–
Yes, think on how many anthologies one appears in already, as an “unknown” person other than name numbers fingerprints dna samples voice prints video surveillance images bank and credit print outs phone records police blotters mentions in the high school paper mentions in the bulletin of the society for the preservation of the such and such–think how many signatures of yours exist in this world!–in so many different media and codes–how many different images recordings and notations–how many records kept by ones one never knew kept records–
and, as well, the invented records, if need be, the doctored photos, the altered voice recordings, the slyly shifted statements given to a conference, the mistranslated and distranslated versions of one’s pronouncements–
the “experimental writing exercises in translation” that have taken your writings and turned them into a barrel of laughs or a symbol of the worn out rag of the rag and bone shop where even the bones are laughing at the rag’s pitifullness–
Yes think on all these lists this wide world round and al the anthologies of worst songs, worst baseball trades, best dressed emmy award winners, worst dictators, best Marxists, the most fabulous and really swingin hot spots,the very truest in its depiction of all narratives of the wars no one living has ever seen–
Yes, so many lists and so many “anthologies” this wide world kept by so many demographers politicos literary subscription sellers campaigns for such and such and the lists just keep getting bigger and bigger and –
soon enough everyone living and dead is included in one huge anthology–if only for a nanosecond–
before the next death and birth have altered it–and who shall cry out for the unborn writers and poets? and who shall mourn those dead before their time? and what abt those writers who never wrote a word yet were the living flower of poetry itself–
what if Poetry itself were to miraculously appear in Judgement and looking around–be bitterly disappointed!! enraged–or bursting at the seams with laughter!
and were to say in a very loud voice
O Poets–how many of you there are that in my name are always already writing fake poetry?
Why how very very few there are after al that are writing Real Poetry–!!
Would not that Poetry be charged and demolished!!
Would not Poetry also be cast into those Guantanamos and Abu Ghraibs, those Bagrams, where are created the latest productions of the “New Extreme Experimental American Poetry and Arts–”–
Or perhaps kept at home in the Homeland Security of the World
’s most emprisoned population–?
FROM BRASSCHECK TV, 5 October 2008:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/440.html
David
The US has a higher percentage of its population
behind bars than any other country in the world:
more than China, more than Russia, more than any
backwater dictatorship.
Roughly 1 out of every 142 US residents is behind bars.
This gulag system is fantastically profitable for
the companies that build and manage prisons…for
the companies that supply them…for the prison
guard unions…and for the state itself which sells
prison labor to private corporations for pennies on
the dollar.
Who are these two million plus people behind bars
in the US?
Are they all monsters the public has to be
protected from or has incarceration become
an addictive business for the state?
Is that’s the case, how safe are any of us
in the long run?
These are questions a freedom loving people
should be asking
itself.
A unique perspective on inmates and prisons
here:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/440.html
- Brasscheck
P.S. Please share Brasscheck TV e-mails and
videos with friends and colleagues.
That’s how our alternative news service grows.
Thanks.
- Brasscheck
Let me use a
political speech
trope, NEG, and
say Let me be
clear: I be bemoanin’
the state of American poetry
on- or off-
line. Both hands
dip into far too
shallow waters. There’s
no nowhere there.
The current scenes do
nothing to advance the
art, any art. Granted,
I may be a new
convert to this
view, or this was
my view all while.
Either way, some
thing needs to stop
or start or some
one needs to tell
the truth–it’s a wide
puddle, not deep,
and it don’t matta
if it’s from a browser
or on your shoes.
maybe i dont know what im talking about BUT, i dont think its a commentary on ‘poetry’ or ‘poets’ or any of that. best comment i seen so far was famous poet over here saying, ‘it’s fairly obvious that most of you don’t read anything unless it has your name attached to it.’ sure it sounds harsh, but isnt there a bigger picture here? its not as trivial as saying ‘everybodys poetry sucks’, wouldnt that be similar to saying duchamps ‘fountain’ went into the exhibit with the intent of saying ‘all these paintings suck’. that, to me at least, was obviously not the point. sure theres ethical issues raised, privacy issues, etc. but to focus ones attention there does a disservice. even to write the whole thing off as a ‘conceptual’ piece.
this interweb deal does a whole lot for leveling the playing field in plenty arenas, media, music, art, poetry, everything, thats fairly obvious. why im drawn to ‘issue 1′ is its tendency to flip this poetic community, to expose frailties of self-concerned artists when the ‘artworld’ theyre used to putting their feet down on is turned upside down. what makes one a ‘poet’ anyway? because of who you associate with? because of where youve been published? what if someone dug around a bit online and put together a list of names and titled it ‘poets’, anyone associated with ‘poetics’, hell it doesnt even have to be ‘anyone’, much less anyone ALIVE, and associated the names with self-less poems created by algorithm? oh wait! is that what the story is? does all this sharing of information build to the dissolution of the self? but the google-alerted selves used in this juxtaposition, the ones writing up petitions and threatening legal action, are those the ones with a dangerous, community-driven false sense of self? im not sure, im not sure.
Many of today’s situational conceptual poetry projects, Issue #1 included, bear out a certain poverty of ideas. And I would include much of the discourse following it.
Can’t read DuChamp’s mind from the grave, but I think why I would bring it up vis-a-vis this Issue 1 thing is that his execution and ideas behind it are far more clever and innovative than this thing, almost 100 years later. Better examples might be the Sokal hoax, heteronymic exercises that are happening now that we won’t even know for years–all of which have a point, rather than a collection of “flat names.”
That the compiler-editors’s frame of “name” recognition reference is Ron Silliman’s blogroll just brings me down.
People aren’t even taking their faces and brains away from the screen to come up with cockamamie third-hand situational art. It reminds me of when I saw Yanni on 60 Minutes say he was only influenced by the music in his own head, rather than, say, Mozart.
“That the compiler-editors’s frame of “name” recognition reference is Ron Silliman’s blogroll just brings me down.”
Isn’t that the point?
dont think it has much in common with the sokal hoax at all. that speaks of editorship, sure, but nothing of online community, search technology, etc. there plenty ‘point’ to the issue, the feathers its riled everywhere thus far are testament enough. matt’s right, sillimans blogroll being a source is the point. and it wasnt the only source. was a slapshod search, a slapshod list, like some slapshod online research going down every moment by students or anyone in this world. THAT is the value in it, THAT is the point. if you looked for ‘poets’ thats what youd find. the names in bulk gain that ‘flat’-ness, even the most revered names become less impactful in this context. thats what the artist here did, that is what he accomplished and in that sense i find it an apt bit of social commentary.
The Issue 1 thing comes from a certain strand of poets I have grown sick of–a cohort of mostly white, male, middle-class, bored, mostly with short beards and self-imposed poverty; poets who must, by virtue of their own aesthetic self-improvement programs, mock the idea of poetry itself while calling themselves poets.
An aside: One of the points of the Sokal Hoax was to expose a certain stripe of academic’s lack of rigor in the sciences–what CP Snow referred to famously as the “Two Cultures.” The academics lambasted are a kind of community, I guess. I will admit the Sokal Hoax is not a complete equivalent example, but at least Sokal published an article in Lingua Franca that “exposed” his hoax article, and explained his point.
But to refer to shoddy research as sending up shoddy research without any commentary of point afterwards–that is *a* point, I suppose. By reading that much into it we engage in an intentional fallacy that’s not a very compelling or resonant, let alone smart.
The Issue 1 editors’ email letter to Kenneth Goldsmith flaunts and flutters that these young men are still grasping for some sort of sensibility, some point or idea now that they have the technology to put something together, to make a conceptual poetry-art project that bigger, stronger, faster. There is an excitement there, but little more.
Conceptual writing and art depends on the process note, the manifesto, the make-it-new statements, to help us understand, appreciate, and learn from a piece.
And I am afraid the case here with Issue #1 reflects the very same poverty of ideas and inchoate frames of reference they are trying to send up.
Now, what are the implications of this for poetry?
What’s missing, I think, is a compelling self–any self–at the center to make this interesting. There’s always a voice somewhere in art. Even if it’s disembodied, it’s a voice.
Well, if we are to take the Issue #1 sensibility–this knock-off of real conceptual writing that has a point, here’s what we end up with. These process note-less, non-self-lyrical poets, who depend on Silliman et al for their own sensibilities, end up as
–not very interesting as selves–say goodbye to the lyric, f-f-f-folks!–and so have to look elsewhere for inspiration;
– They–the non-self process-noteless poets–have the luxury (education, comfort, support) to move beyond the self, and by so doing conclude that this is a higher-minded pursuit;
–They are much more prone to the seduced-by-technique quandary that’s afflicted poets since time indefinite;
–A peculiar self-imposed poverty of the self, following up on the view that an American/decadent/capitalist/middle class self cannot adequately express the capital I Ideas that the poem “needs” to get across; and by so doing we end up back at square one, or Issue #1, as is the case here.
I see I’m going to have to grow out my beard a little more to distinguish myself from the caricature above. Not much I can do about my race or class at the moment, though. Sheesh.
A shave will do you good, doodle. I have a few non-Pitchfork-approved mixed CDs to loan you. And there’s plenty of charities out there to give to as well.
Wow. Thanks Daniel Nester. You just made me realize what a horrible person I am for not giving to charities. I wonder why I haven’t…–oh, wait a second, maybe it’s because I make 9.25/hr with no insurance of any kind and can barely pay the rent…. Nah, I’m probably just a narcissist.
Nobody’s a narcissist here, Mr. Matt. You’re a wonderful person, as far as you know. I was only speaking to Doodle and his caricature. A man’s allowed to rant. That’s what comment boxes are for.
Seriously, though: do you really think the point of Issue 1 is that the editors could recognize names only from the Silliman blogroll? Have poets become that inside baseball and hermetic that we sample ourselves?
If so, this only goes to prove that current American poetry is in its big hair phase–any Skid Row knockoff in their second year in grad school thinks if they work hard enough, and write as faux-enchantment enough, they will get a pullout section in APR. My point: that doesn’t make it any good.