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September 2008
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Harriet

Reginald Shepherd
This Is Just to Say

I have posted a revised and much longer version of my Harriet post on "post-avant-garde" poetry, now titled "Defining Post-Avant-Garde Poetry," on my own blog, to be found here.

In this extended version of the piece I discuss various writers' conceptions of the phenomenon I address, including Paul Hoover's new modernism, Stephen Burt's ellipticism, and Ron Silliman's third way. I also further expand on the idea that the mainstream/avant-garde dichotomy is outmoded. I hope that all who are interested in this topic will take a look.

03.01.08 | Comments (4)



Comments


There was already a post-avant garde movement, known as the derriere garde.

Posted by: Troy Camplin, Ph.D. on March 1, 2008 9:16 PM

This night I read the post on your blog; and then--after doing an
"elliptical poetry" search--read a related essay:
Tony Hoagland's
"Fear of Narrative and the Skittery Poem of Our Moment";
and now I am going to find and read
Kenneth Golsmith's related essay.
Some days ago I read Joshua Corey's essay
and Robert Archambeau's essay.
This chase I'm into is starting to get like a seminar in reverse.
Had already read most of Paul Hoover's related Norton anthology.

Posted by: Brian Salchert on March 1, 2008 9:47 PM

Dear world:

  • Narrow sight means narrow vision.
  • The more I think about whether my art is experimental or traditional the less I get done.
  • Traditional and experimental: these are as constitutive, shifting, and perceptual as the other great descriptive fictions of our age: race, gender, sexuality and beyond.
  • Where is your generosity as a reader, as a writer?
  • Don’t swallow stones just because they glitter; don’t eat spoiled meat even if it smells sweet.
  • Anything can be turned: the subversive becomes fashionable; the commonplace, cutting-edge.
  • What is the structural principle within the work?
  • How does (or does not) the work’s structural principle animate substance over surface effect?
  • How does—-how will-—the work endure?
  • Good work is its own recognition so why worry about who gets awards?
  • Complaints, controversies, and concepts are curious: they purport to bring us closer to the work through heightened discussion while simultaneously distancing us from the particularities of the art itself
  • If you become enraged or aggrieved when you read a work that does not conform to your ideals to the point where you label, rant, rail, and condemn, then you need to make a trip to Darfur in Sudan or to any number of inner city environments or even to a foreclosed house in the suburbs so you may rediscover your generosity and relocate what is dire in our age.
  • If a mosquito could pull a plow then I would surely hook her up.
  • I’d rather be an artisan like an unsightly plumber, pants-ill-fitted, kneeling before open pipes, then an artist who is overly concerned with the lie of greatness and the devilry of my work’s reception.
  • Favor really is deceit.
  • As soon as you feel you are entitled to something as an artist you have already missed the generous point of your practice.
  • Your work is no more important anyone else’s.
  • Greatness is the worse kind of advertising: good work demands more than a slogan, more than platitudes, more than superlatives, more than favor, more, more, more—it keeps demanding and questioning--refusing hagiography, refusing memorials, refusing labels, refusing in-groups and out-groups, refusing to be done.
Sincerely yours,

Jonathan David Jackson

Posted by: Jonathan David Jackson on March 4, 2008 11:23 AM

Greatness is the worse kind of advertising: good work demands more than a slogan, more than platitudes, more than superlatives, more than favor, more, more, more—it keeps demanding and questioning--refusing hagiography, refusing memorials, refusing labels, refusing in-groups and out-groups, refusing to be done.

I kind of like this one, Jonathan David Jackson. More, more, more, how do you like it, how do you like it - (remember that song, Reginald?) [Good work] keeps demanding and questioning - yes, it does.

Posted by: Mary Meriam on March 6, 2008 12:24 AM

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