Comments on: A Brief, Belated Review of “Twelve Visual Poems” (edited by Geof Huth, from the November issue of Poetry)

By: nico vassilakis

nico vassilakis — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:53:24 +0000

“There are things happening we don’t talk about. A dictionary haphazardly opened is a trick for letters to flee. Rising off the page into your eyes or into your nostrils or into your ears. These letters don’t sustain meaning. They are in flux and are better considered particulates of the larger WORD world. In this place though we are specifically concerned with these singular units that comprise what we know as alphabet.
In this world letters are vulnerable and cant always stand on their own. Letters alone are typically unwanted things. They are in danger of being individual, of lacking community, of not forming into a word. Isolated.
And the bits that flake off, that are shaved off, that simply give way – these letters collapse, they morph, they concoct a new purpose. The visual potential of each letter. Here is that poetry.”
n

By: Jason Guriel

Jason Guriel — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:03:14 +0000

Zach, Nico, and Troylloyd, thanks for the comments and conversation.
I hope my mention of bpNichol doesn’t imply that I think there haven’t been explosive transformations in visual poetry since Nichol’s day and outside of his lineage. I do hope it implies that I’ve had some engagement with visual poetry prior to Geof’s piece, which was in question. But I better stress I don’t pretend to be an expert – see all my question marks – and I appreciate the various links and resources people have been kind enough to provide.
Also, I think some of the examples I’ve given – the Benjamin, the Pater – aren’t “typically descriptive” even if they don’t literally (i.e. physically) blend with, and alter, the works they witness. Pater’s untypical description of Mona transforms Mona, even if only in the mind. It’s its own work of art, even if it isn’t spray-painted directly onto the painting’s canvas. In other words, exciting and artful criticism (not beleaguered by too many buzz-words) is possible even if it doesn’t take the form of, or merge with, its object.
And yes, I did title my entry a review – a review of “Twelve Visual Poems” which includes, and is not preceded by, Geof’s commentary. I note your preference, but I spend most of my review on his commentary because my questions are mostly about criticism.

By: troylloyd

troylloyd — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:07:18 +0000

wellsaid nico.
i can only quote R. Johnson:
VISTA
_____
eye-lid
a f t e r
eye-lid
Ө Ө

By: nico vassilakis

nico vassilakis — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:13:22 +0000

jason, i can appreciate bpNichols’ lineage, but we’re still talking 20-30yrs ago. current work in visualpoetry has exploded. your question of available criticism is about a lack of organization on this side of the visual poetry fence. i can understand that. vispoets don’t have overly ambitious agendas. they’re not flarf or conceptual or o=t=h=e=r poets. but an overview of textual response to visual poetry is a necessary item. yet there are no major presses that take on visual poets. there are no grants for this category. visual poetry is locked in purgatory. a segue literature that is considered a bastard child – barely making it to the table. they get less than scraps. it seemed impossible that POETRY included vispo – pretty amazing. and doing that has brought about this conversation.
zach? part of the problem is that lineated textual response to visual poetry is typically descriptive. offers little more than telling me what im looking at. i hope for a textual response to a visual poem or a collection visual poetry that blends with the poem/s to create new writing and seeing. this idea of insider and outsider …not the people i know, but i know it happens. i would have prefered if jason spoke to the work – as he did title his entry a review.

By: Zachariah Wells

Zachariah Wells — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:31:59 +0000

Nico Vassilakis? Sorry, I haven’t heard of you.
See how easy that is? It’s a passive-aggressive formulation of the argument from authority. Seems to me Jason wasn’t pretending to know anything in his post. He was asking questions. A bit of a “disservice” to, effectively, tell him he doesn’t know sh– in response.
In my experience–again, limited–whenever some vispo outsider dares to say anything remotely critical of something related to vispo, there’s always some vispo insider–often a choir of ‘em–leaping up to shout “philistine!” As an example, in a riposte to Carmine Starnino’s review of the anthology Shift & Switch, a book that is co-edited by one of the vispoets in Huth’s feature, Katherine Parrish told Carmine to “stop pissing in our end of the pool.” Keep in mind that this is an anthology that even Ron Silliman couldn’t find much good to say about.
In my much more extensive experience with criticism of lineated textual poetry, most critics–and almost all of the most interesting ones–actually are practitioners. I recently read Paul Muldoon’s Oxford lectures, for instance. I can’t tell you how many times my jaw dropped at the sheer brilliance of his insights into various poems. (I can’t tell you how many times I scratched my head over some bizarre stretches, too, but genius is usually uneven.) This isn’t a matter of “explainations” [sic--again, see how easy this is?] or “quantifiable results.” It’s a question of the criticism itself being a work of literature, a pleasure to read, not merely workmanlike and pedagogically useful.
I haven’t read Huth’s writing elsewhere, but Jason’s right about the prose in Poetry. And this is what he is responding to, not to the poems and not to Huth’s critical oeuvre writ large. The text accompanying the poems reads like exhibit catalog boiler plate. Better to take the stance of the poet I quoted in my last response and say nothing.

By: Jason Guriel

Jason Guriel — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 12:43:33 +0000

Troylloyd, thanks for the resources.
Nico, I have heard of you, and you would be “amiss” in saying that I “haven’t spent time looking further than the limited and limiting portfolio (10 visual poets) geof huth culled for mainstream POETRY.” I live in Canada, where bpNichol is regarded as a literary icon by the “mainstream.” I took Steve McCaffrey’s class, as an undergraduate at York University, where I was exposed to much visual poetry. As a graduate student, I’ve taught bpNichol’s visual poetry to undergraduates, with enthusiasm. But I appreciate the KALDRON link.
I would hope that visual poets don’t need an unknown like me to rally their critical cause. I would hope that the visual poems themselves are enough.

By: nico vassilakis

nico vassilakis — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 04:57:17 +0000

jason guriel? sorry, i havent heard of you. or you of me. would i be amiss in saying, nothing you’ve done is remotely related to visual poetry or that you haven’t spent time looking further than the limited and limiting portfolio (10 visual poets) geof huth culled for mainstream POETRY? i ask because, of course, i wonder how you can even review, briefly or belatedly, something you don’t know? saying the poems are “pleasant enough” or “i enjoyed the visual poems” is the extent of your offering. you backhandedly arouse contempt about visual poetry in the minds of those who know nothing about it. your blog entry is a pleasant smelling negative comment. you jab at the preface, but miss the surface. you want explainations. you want quantifiable results. most critics aren’t even practitioners of the thing they critique. art critics, theatre critics, music critics, etc.
i have to agree with you though, that there is little in the way of current text pertaining to visual poetry. you can go to KALDRON to seek some answers. visual poetry is a worldwide endeavor. your lack of information in a setting like harriet is unfortunate. you do a disservice squabbling over geof’s preface.
but perhaps, the silver lining is that you may help spark a call to arms to those truly interested in visual poetry – to write about it. beyond comments in a blog would cetainly be a starting point, eh?
thanks and no thanks jason guriel whoever you are.

By: troylloyd

troylloyd — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 03:11:59 +0000

-where’s the great criticism on visual poetry?-
In my book, Geof Huth is one of the most important critics we have on visual poetry, maybe i shouldn’t use the term critic, he’s an extremely critical reader who shares his readings w/ interest’d folks — he’s also a great visual poet, from way back when in the zine days. Thru his blog i’ve been turn’d on to many vispoets i’d never know about, i’ve garnered new ways of lookreading & i’ve come to understand some vital tenets of visual poetries, all thru reading Geof’s blog, which he posts on every single day. If you spend some time going thru his archives, you’ll discover what an attentive reader he is, & he’s not afraid to say when something doesn’t work or if he simply doesn’t like something, he’s as honest as they come & his ingrain’d passion is self-evident.
here’s a short article somewhat related to his being ask’d to do a portfolio for Poetry:
visual poetry: what it is & is not
& here’s an interview w/ him that’s well worth reading:
an interview w/ Geof
again, i state the fact his writing was intend’d to be an introduction, a primer, a keyhole to lead those so interest’d about finding out more to the simple doorknob for entry. The fact that there was even a visual poetry portfolio in Poetry is stunning & difficult enough for “pure poetry” folks to digest as being a legimate form of poetry — the last thing one would want to do is go off onna wildride tangent of transgressive threshing & risk even further alienation!
i appreciate great writing as well, but your great writing is different from my great writing — even when we all read the same book, the pages are different for each of us.

By: Jason Guriel

Jason Guriel — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:08:07 +0000

Yes, Zach, I guess I’ve been trying to talk about cliches, and in my struggle to find some synonyms for the word “cliches” (e.g., obvious formulations, loaned-out lexicons, etc.), I’ve been unclear, and have wound up conflating “jargon” and “cliche,” creating more confusion. “In a word, cliched,” is what you write, and I probably should’ve stuck to “a word,” as you did.
In my defense, though, negative connotations often seem to cling to the word “jargon”, at least in my mind (but then that’s usually where my troubles start). And I do wonder if the line between “jargon” and “cliche” is not quite so crisp and depends on context? For example, perhaps that phrase “textual materiality of language,” in a theory seminar, is useful postmodern jargon but, in the pages of Poetry, is merely a cliche.
Or perhaps I’m being imprecise, though I don’t mind risking imprecision, from time to time, in pursuit of less mildewy prose. Cliches are useful – e.g. “from time to time,” etc. – and I hold my own prose up to ever more outside scrutiny the longer I pull at this (post’s) thread. But I just found too many cliches in Huth’s piece, especially given its relative brevity. But maybe others out there don’t find phrases like “the transformative power of language,” among the many quoted above, to be as tired as I do. And with these folks, my ultimate question – where’s the great criticism on visual poetry? – will not resonate.
I appreciate, Troylloyd, the less complacent examples of prose you’ve shared. And I suppose ‘complacency’ is what I’m complaining about, a little too much satisfaction with preexisting expressions. Or is it sloppiness? On his own blog, Huth writes, “I had written [the piece] in a flurry of activity in my aunt’s dining room in Burlingame, California.” I can’t account for the demands on Huth’s attention – a cursory glance at an online profile of Huth suggests he has more demands than I do – but this sounds like Huth is open to the possibility, even if others aren’t, that his prose could’ve been a bit rushed or passed over (in terms of his attention).
But as initially stated, I don’t think Huth’s piece is “bad” or even unclear. And I’m sure he’s done much for visual poetry.
And I’m not advocating for “gonzo” criticism. Indeed, I find terms like “gonzo” limiting. Hugh Kenner and Lester Bangs may have operated in different worlds but they’re both great writers. If I “desire” anything it’s great writing, the best of which tends to avoid cliches and outlast categories and not be satisfied with its “own place” for long.

By: Zachariah Wells

Zachariah Wells — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:42:08 +0000

I think what Jason’s getting at is that these particular phrases are imprecise and, moreover, deadened by overuse. In a word, cliched. The problem isn’t that they’re jargon. Jargon is very useful, when it’s descriptive. Iamb is a jargon term. Simile. Metrical substitution. Quatrain. Anaphora. The problem with the sort of phrase Jason highlights is that it sounds rather more like the answer to a catechism than the particular response of an engaged individual reader. Correct me if I’m wrong, Jason.
In my limited experience, I’ve found people either all too willingly to talk about visual and concrete poetries in the lexicon of academic bafflegab, or, for reasons I think Manoel rightly observes, they don’t want to talk about it at all. I tried to get one of the visual poets highlighted by Huth to write a review of a book of visual poems once and he declined. Here’s how he put it:
“not everyone wishes to be a didact. when i encounter ‘art’ of any stripe i never feel the need to have it explained to me by “experts”. i make my work for those with similar inclinations. and globally, there are plenty of us.
to be perfectly honest, i’m tired of all these terms, all the defining, explaining and justifying which only ever seems to amount to talking to drywall.”