Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn
The poetic blogosphere being presented as an alternative space to academia annoys me. Not so much because it could be (which somewhat still annoys me, this notion of alternative space), but because the discourse at hand replicates and repeats the discourse the aforementioned poet-bloggers seek to resist. There is of course the notion of team, the triumphalist investigation of the community as a tool for change, us vs. them, "accessibility" vs. "the true spirit of the avant-garde." All this, again, annoys the fuck out of me.
Of course, I too am legitimizing it by writing about it (well, at least to the 50 something people who stumbled here googling info on the forthcoming Watchmen movie (Note: Move along, there is probably nothing here for you) and the 5 or so returning visitors), but it's only poetry (or poetry business).
By which I want to say, by discussing poetry as such, we are cutting it off from everything else and isolating it. You know, that same insularity that makes much of American poetry a joke?
Case in point, the brouhaha over the Mark Halliday review of Joshua Clover's Totality for Kids. Yes, old news, but aren't we giving Mark Halliday too much credit? Aren't we giving too much credit to poets with overinflated reputations? Okay, sure, Halliday is responsible for turning the new ohio review to shit. But it's not like I would want to be hired (if that were ever to happen) by Ohio State University. And even if I ever thought of moving to Ohio to teach, it wouldn't be Creative Writing (yes, I have reached the point where I dislike the majority of my classmates. Again).
Anyway, back to reading stuff on architecture and urban planning.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn
John Berryman, from The Dream Songs
The poetic blogosphere being presented as an alternative space to academia annoys me. Not so much because it could be (which somewhat still annoys me, this notion of alternative space), but because the discourse at hand replicates and repeats the discourse the aforementioned poet-bloggers seek to resist. There is of course the notion of team, the triumphalist investigation of the community as a tool for change, us vs. them, "accessibility" vs. "the true spirit of the avant-garde." All this, again, annoys the fuck out of me.
Of course, I too am legitimizing it by writing about it (well, at least to the 50 something people who stumbled here googling info on the forthcoming Watchmen movie (Note: Move along, there is probably nothing here for you) and the 5 or so returning visitors), but it's only poetry (or poetry business).
By which I want to say, by discussing poetry as such, we are cutting it off from everything else and isolating it. You know, that same insularity that makes much of American poetry a joke?
Case in point, the brouhaha over the Mark Halliday review of Joshua Clover's Totality for Kids. Yes, old news, but aren't we giving Mark Halliday too much credit? Aren't we giving too much credit to poets with overinflated reputations? Okay, sure, Halliday is responsible for turning the new ohio review to shit. But it's not like I would want to be hired (if that were ever to happen) by Ohio State University. And even if I ever thought of moving to Ohio to teach, it wouldn't be Creative Writing (yes, I have reached the point where I dislike the majority of my classmates. Again).
Anyway, back to reading stuff on architecture and urban planning.
Comments
As for Ploughshares, I was a bit harsh on them, considering they didn't publish the review in question.