Manifesto

1)  The practice of an art should be immersed in the bringing-into-existence-as-creativity process. The result need not communicate.  
2)  Art should be conditional, i.e., conditions set by the artist. Once set he should not risk these conditions for what is called “communication.”  
3)  Art should encourage mannerism.  
4)  Do not encourage “economy” in poetry.  
5)  Rhythm in poetry need not be “smooth” or “musical” (since that word has a questionable meaning). Be cautious of these descriptions as a so-called “good ear.”  
6)  Do not allow “precision” of observation and literalness as “sense” (i.e. exegetical reasoning or “good” logic) to interfere with or dominate experimentation or expressiveness, i.e. do not destroy a poem trying to make it clear.  
7)  All voice qualities should be acceptable as the poet intends them (ironic innocence, bombast, intelligence, etc.). However, do NOT accept understatement “plain-spoken,” prose-like as being “sincerity.”  
8)  Be self-indulgent as an artist. Use solipsism if necessary — be the source of everything.  
9)  Repetition: Use redundancy. If a thing is good enough to be said once, it is good enough to be repeated in some form immediately and thereafter. What a reader “already knows” or has “already been told once” should not be a criterion for a poem’s processes since a poem need not be determined by, or directed toward, “meaning” or so-called “sense” either as “economy” or as information. The poet may, like the composer with a melody, tell his audience the same thing as many times as he chooses using different words (like different orchestral instruments), or the same words in the service of rhythm, momentum, mood, and stimuli extension, written volume, etc. Make use of “implicitness” since a poem is not obligated to avoid inherent meaning similarities as though they have already been written into the poem’s words. Most grass may be “green,” but the word “green” has its own properties.  
10) Distract the reader. Generally, the casual reader goes straight for the “sense,” or the “meaning,” behind the words (as some alcoholics want to get full). Thus words as performance should intervene with “bouquet” or any kind of “conspicuous technique” with “meaning” secondary. 
11) In Poetry-Drama (not “poetic” drama) the aim is similar: the predominance of the poetry performance as technique! Do not use “measured prose” (to quote a well-known critic) thereby leaving the poetry as an appendage of some play which would be self-sufficient without the poetry or measured prose). 
                        Therefore: 
12) If possible, avoid saying anything in poetry as it would ordinarily be said (unless as dialogue in the nature of quotation, or for contrasting effects). In short, avoid the language “really used by men” in everyday affairs (“the language of ordinary men” etc.) that’s not far from the “grossness of domestick use” (therefore breeding contempt from familiarity). Question also “the language of common speech,” to quote others. Rather, let poetry thrust toward a language “peculiar to itself.” 
13) ART: Art does not have to convince. Its aim is largely AESTHETIC, not essentially informative or “problem solving,” or trying to “tell anyone anything.” THEREFORE: “beauty,” being its own value, is to be defined ONLY by the artist as he immerses himself in the bringing-into-existence-as-creativity process. Nothing the artist does is obligated to “work” for or “communicate” with an audience. It is a phenomenalism about which the audience is relatively free. 
14) Art: Each artist — as creator — says: “This is aesthetic as I see it!” Do not confuse subject matter with Art: they are two separate entities. The art aspects should not be confused with “sincerity”: the two things need not be the aim of each other in spite of all the nonsense about this. Art may be the treatment of subject matter and as such evolves intangibly through the artist as he brings-into-existence-as-creativity that from the sublime to the obscene. Art may be logically in the nature of ornament as in many cultures. There is no reason for poetry to avoid the nature of ornament. 
15) Don’t write the “good” or the “best” of anything. Write poetry or “music” that does what YOU want done.

                                                                [Juxtapositions, 1991]