Alison,
Thanks for the response. Let me point out, please, how you misread me.
It's not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with the conventional
name stamp, no more than there is anything really wrong with the photos of
the company's actors in the foyer. It's just that such stampings mark a
*productive horizon* beyond which certain imaginative moves cannot be made
and certain (mostly undisovered, no doubt) imaginative dimensions cannot be
entered. Hyper-authorsip, as I argue in an interview forthcoming this fall,
does not supplant, it *adds*. It's an aperture, a tunneling, hinted at by
Pessoa, barely touched since.
Now, I understand that conventional attributional forms can also be
productive, even psychically propulsive, for some (Henry Gould is an
unusually interesting case, Narcissus purposely drowning himself into his
reflection to see what's on the other side), but for the vast majority of
poets (this is indisputable, it seems to me) self-inscription inside an
institutionalized mode of production/distribution/reception is made without
a thought, as if it were the law of nature, or something. And this is
ideology powerfully working, of course.
I am not saying that poets should stop using their names, and I've made this
clear in a number of published statements; I'm saying that poetry is perhaps
in the days of Kitty Hawk, and other forms of flight haven't begun to be
glimpsed. There will be lots of pilots who will be immolated in tests of new
vehicles, powered by weird fuels. It's an exciting time.
By the way, my "toast"/Author conceit in last post was not meant to suggest
champagne-- I meant the toast that pops out of the toaster!
Kent
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