[Janice D. Soderling]

But it's in our power to make [the sandbox] bigger. We just need to take a different approach.

I play in the pretty well the whole sandbox. I write vers libre as well as formal verse in a variety of received and experimental forms, and am constantly proving new and/or unusual approaches and patterns. I dabble in surreal poetry and light verse, and even, at times, attempt to project deeper meaning in my work. I write political poetry. I write fiction, both flash and longer pieces, and essays. I write in more than one language and I translate.

Whether I do any of this well or badly will be judged differently by different ears/eyes. But I do it.

What I don't do, I hope, is to put up flarfific prefabs and conceptual facades unvaried as the movie set fronts of a wild west main street.

And because I build my castles throughout--and even exterior to--the sandbox, I make the claim that my critique of flarf and conceptual poetry is legitimite and justifiable; it isn't small-minded muttering or because I have an anal-retentive or xenophobic attitude.

It is not because I have no aesthetics, but because I have differing aesthetics. I see no reason to be apologetic about this.

[R. Nemo Hill]

Bill writes: "Ah, so here's the real question. After all, if there's room for everybody, abundance for everyone, what do we care what's going on in some distant corner?"

Actually I think the point is that, were it not for those far flung corners the entire sandbox would suffer. Historically speaking, those far corners have often enough pioneered certain techniques or views which have eventually been absorbed into the more mainstream center of the box. Case in point...Janice writes..."I play in the pretty well the whole sandbox. I write vers libre as well as formal verse in a variety of received and experimental forms, and am constantly proving new and/or unusual approaches and patterns. I dabble in surreal poetry.....". And yet many of those experimental forms that you may "dabble" in you owe to people who at one point or another took a rather theatrically extreme stand in one of the sandbox's far flung corners that earned them the opprobrium of those people playing in the center. "It'll be the death of our art" has been a cry heard throughout the centuries. No wonder it takes a more and more extreme gesture to deal the deathblow these days.

Reaction against tradition is a cyclical thing, and it serves tradition by calling it into question and thus re-fertilizing it with doubt. Radical manifesto is by its nature hyperbolic, so that once its excesses drain away what remains becomes more sand in the box.

I don't think my assessment is as unreasonable as all this outrage at particular renegades. The renegade view re-arises periodically because it is needed. And I didn't see anything in KG's interview that made it seems as if he were claiming to be anything but its latest free agent.

If KG thinks I am an asshole and doesn't not extend the same benefit of the doubt to me that I do to him, Rose, that is of no importance to me. That too is sand for the box.

Nemo

[Brian Watson]

I think the real question is: should conceptual poetry be federally funded?

[R. Nemo Hill]

Well that opens the floodgates for a tide of one-liners!

Nemo

[Janice D. Soderling]

I think the real question is: should conceptual poetry be federally funded?

There is a current thread for that question. This thread is about aesthetics. I think.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by Brian Watson

I think the real question is: should conceptual poetry be federally funded?

I think it should be conceptually funded.




(Sorry Nemo -- that one was a lob across the middle of the plate...)

[Rose Kelleher]

Originally Posted by Bill

Now, before we actually get to the point, we should give these people their due. They are actually willing to make an aesthetic statement, to take a position. If we were to ask each other "what are your poetics?" how many of us would have a ready answer? Think about it. Take just a minute now, and describe your aesthetics. What do you write, why do you write it, what does it do, what's the goal? I dare you (not you in particular, Rose, everybody.) Even just fifty words. Less than this paragraph. Heck, use a hundred, if you need them.

Why is the ability to sum up one's aesthetic in 50 words or less a good thing?

Okay, I just answered my own question: Marketing. If marketability is the ultimate goal, than yes, you have a point.

Originally Posted by Nemo

If KG thinks I am an asshole and doesn't not extend the same benefit of the doubt to me that I do to him, Rose, that is of no importance to me. That too is sand for the box.

Yes, that's true for you, but it's not realistic to expect most poets to see it that way. Some of them are trying to make careers, and competing for scarce resources. Some want their poetry to be read after they die, and getting published in Norton anthologies and the New Yorker and all that is an important part of the plan. It's a fight for survival. Only people like you, who have no ego, and people like me, who have no hope, are free to forget about all that.

[R. Nemo Hill]

I think the choice between consciously formulating a personal aesthetic as opposed to proceeding purely on an intuitive level is not all that black and white. Conscious & unconscious all play their part. And as poets I think there is no need to denigrate ideas which can be quite as beautifully formulated as poems--whether we agree with them or not. Sure some are great at talking more about things than doing them, and the opposite is true of others--so what? One is better than the other? I don't think it fair to penalize an artist for trying to think and speak clearly about their motivations; nor do I think it kosher to chastise someone whose praxis does not include such potentially narcissistic theorizing. Rather than criticize those who do things opposite to the way "we" do them, why not take the interdisciplinary approach and learn from them so that we can develop both styles of self-expression.

As far as the "non-producing artist", I am as uncomfortable with the phenomenon as others who I am disagreeing with up here. Yet the vast new world of virtual reality makes such a train of thought inevitable--and we ignore it at our peril. The fracturing of the world order that occurred during WWI led to a parallel refraction in the arts, a huge disruption with what had come before. The era when this so-named conceptualism first took hold of theory was another era of cultural shift, the 1960's. Our present technological revolution likewise seems bound to come with its own violent rifts, no? Art does not exist in a vacuum. I mean people are playing sports without moving from their chairs now, right--without moving a muscle other than their key punching fingers.

Personally, though I lament the loss of craft in all walks of life (I do make my living importing traditionally hand-loomed silks, after all), I am not comfortable with all this talk about the poem itself as the only important thing: I try to take a broader view of art than that--yes, consciously so--and think of the poem as the end product of another process, the evidence. It seems to me that focusing purely on the poem as object is more the marketing approach than using the poem as one piece of a wider psychological/philosophical mystery--merely the most tangible part of, if you will, a conceptual process. The possibility that it (the poem) is expendable, well, I'll consider it. I don't think I agree, but I'm not horrified by the thought; it doesn't make me angry at the bearer of that message.

And, Ed, it seems a little beside the point to insist on judging a conceptual artist on the basis of the material product he is blatantly rejecting the traditional valuation of. It's like telling a monk that has taken a vow of silence that you don't like his tone of voice. So should KG then not call himself a "poet'? Such a hair-splitting technical point seems moot.

I suppose the competition for resources and attention makes sense, Rose. And such a materialistic view can explain, I suppose, of the virulence of the reaction to KG. I'm not immune to envy, or the feeling that cultural approval is much too far from my own doorstep, ha! But on a deeper level there seems some sort of insecurity at work here as well: as if all our labor is to be proved pointless and not to be rewarded if some one can skirt it with such infuriating cleverness. I do think humility is the liberating answer to that conundrum--but I speak as one struggling with it constantly. If I sound as if accomplishments in this regard are otherwise, that is probably just evidence of my own deep insecurities and frustrations.

I trust I've said too much--%#&?

Nemo

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by R. Nemo Hill

I do think humility is the liberating answer to that conundrum

Nemo,

Exactly. This is critical. It's not a bad thing to ask ourselves "What are we doing, and why are we doing it?" I think those are natural questions.

And as much as I don't wish to disagree with Rose, who I think very much deserves to be more hopeful, I don't think it's mere marketing when done honestly and with a sense of humility. I, for one, am constantly feeling my way through the dark, asking myself "Is this the right step? Is that the right direction?" It's the uncertainty that makes me wish to keep trying to answer these questions.

The idea that we can see everything in the practice is essentially a remnant of both Neo-Platonist Christianity and Romanticism with a big R. Even Frank O'Hara was making fun of that one in the 50's. Everything is in the poems, he said, laughing. Seeing the poem as detached object is from the 30's, something from the Fugitives and the New Critics. If we're still supporting those notions, we're as reactionary as we think other people think we are.

I'm firmly convinced that no-one here (especially not here) has an unexamined poetics. I'm persuaded everyone believes the unexamined poem is not worth writing. Otherwise it would all be Howls and Barbaric Yawps.

So really, Nemo, I don't think you've said too much. Maybe this is even the start of a long overdue conversation...

Thanks,

Bill

(ps. Funny, my spell-checker doesn't like the word 'yawp' ...

[Stephen Collington]

Originally Posted by R. Nemo Hill

I do think humility is the liberating answer to that conundrum

Originally Posted by W.F. Lantry

Exactly. This is critical. It's not a bad thing to ask ourselves "What are we doing, and why are we doing it?" I think those are natural questions. . . . I don't think it's mere marketing when done honestly and with a sense of humility.

Yeah, O.K., got it got it got it. Now that's that's a good point. Because, you know, my head also was so into this book for the last while that there you know there was I was it's so incredibly self-sufficient there was no need to show up in general. You know it's been so really really self-sufficient in that thing. It seemed like there was no commercial value so in other words the only the only and I the only work that I wanted to do was to keep A.G. and Geoff's interest up and I did that work. No, no you know I did that work because I wasn't gonna lose this opportunity to get this fucking thing published. You know when I you know you know it's the same thing when I want something you know we've always been able to kind of take care of that. The fact is at some level, you know, over the last while I haven't really wanted that much--like I have what I've wanted and I didn't need to get out there and and and do these things, you know. The fact, you know, this stuff snowballing into the Art In America article I mean without the show that we did the Art In America article never would have happened. Right? And it was really great and you know at the time I I I kind of made these things and I made them, you know, from my heart I mean they were real. I wasn't making them for a show, you know, I was just making them. And you know the fact that we that we ended up you know showing them and then all the you know kind of subsequent attention, if not critical anyway commercial attention for this work leading you know leading up to that article you know was really you know was really was really amazing and I'm really glad I did that without that you know I mean it was a good thing. Um, you know I don't really know I don't really know you know I sometimes feel like like you know if my work has made this kind of a turn you know and it's been a turn not so much against you guys, um, but against kind of the gallery system because I really felt like the last piece at your show, like I said in that talk you know it just was fuckin' you know it just just nobody got it you know it just really went over people's heads and I was pissed--I'm still pissed I'm still really pissed at people's inability in the artworld to handle reading and language I'm really you know and I could say easily just say fuck it. It just happens that Raphael's a poet and a sensitive guy and got tuned into this. You know but you know? I'm still pissed. It didn't sell, it didn't get any any any attention it just you know completely got lost and it was a good piece and I still believe that it was a really really excellent piece. You know it did things with language but it was too, um, linguistically and I think intellectually ambitious for the artworld. You know? I I know it. They could handle it when it was three panels they got it it was enough but when it went to 6 panels or 8 panels it was too much. You know I mean I can't tell you how many people have told me that they've seen the article but how many people have actually read the article? It's the same it's the same situation. You know and it's not my interest, you know. My interest is really really seriously involved with language I mean Raphael really hit it. Yeah, so it's kind of you know I'm I'm still pissed about it, really. I'm not making really visual work because I'm not really interested in those issues and I always thought that the artworld was a place that was big enough to accept you know a piece like I showed at your gallery last time and Cheryl was just so funny. She you know when we were coming home we saw these cards Cheryl says "Make an image" you know it get reproduced up and down. I said "Yeah, I'm an asshole. I should have been making images all these years! Imagine how much play I would have gotten--I make one image and look what hap you know look what happens." You know you know it was all ironical, of course you know um you know I mean I realize that I'm going upstream and it's not... Yeah, yeah right. Yeah. I know it. I know it. I know it. You know. It is. Image World, Image World. Right, remember that show? In a way I'm really reacting against that in a way because like I happen to think that that's a misnomer you know in a way language is so abundant you know I mean words... Yeah, yeah I'm not interested in that. Yeah but but but look at this. There's many more words in this than there are pictures in this newspaper. Um, I think well I don't I don't know. And the other thing is like it's language. Look at what we're doing now, we're talking. You know how much language is being slung around this room right now? And what's radio? Radio is nothing but language you know? Yeah but that's a fallacy that's a fallacy. With my work, you never had to do that. But people never understood that, of course and it's still, a 600 page book you cannot read this thing cover front to back. But that but that was that was my whole project forever has been to turn that convention on it's ear you know it really has been. My work has been unlike any other text art it's always been really accessible it's always been easy to come and go because I agree with you on that level, I mean, this book man, I had to read this thing through twice start to finish to proofread it -- it's unreadable! It's you know it's the kind of book that you might leave your on the back of your toilet and when you're taking a shit you pick it up, catch something so that you'll never find that again because there's so much goddamned language in there. It's not meant to be read linearly--none of my work is. And that's the other part that really pissed me off about the artworld because they just saw text and it was dismissed as if it was a 1971 Joseph Kosuth piece. So they're reading it interpreting it visually. Anyway, I'm not gonna really you know I'm not there's no way I'm gonna you know you know I wanna really change what I'm doing and... But what if I don't think the book would make a terrific art show. I don't know. Karin once said, she was so sweet, ‘cause Karin's just trying to be so supportive and I love her for it she says "We should just put the book on a pedestal in the middle of the gallery!" No no no no no! It is. It is. Naw. Yeah. It was beautiful. It was a really striking installation. It was. Yeah. But but. Yeah. Right. No no. Here's a here's a new project I'm working on. OK? I'm taking a leap of language. I'm recording everything I'm saying say for an entire week. I mean it no, I'm always taking about the volume of language that's around I mean what what would your language look like if it was if you collected every piece of shit word you that you said for an entire week.

--Kenneth Goldsmith, "Soliloquy," Monday morning

And that's just (part of) the morning of the first day!

Ed, if you want to sample some of Goldsmith's oeuvre, it's pretty well all available online. Just go to his Wikipedia page and follow the links under "Works." Soliloquy has some fancy coding that prevents you from seeing the continuous text unless you follow it with your mouse pointer, but you can get around that. Just press Ctrl+A, and the selection highlighting makes the continuous text visible.

The future of poetry. Enjoy!