A quick comment on the New Formalism. My poems weren't posted 'in reference
to' it, and in fact I have no particular interest in it. Joe and Candice
were making a comparison between my approach to form and that of the New
Formalists, which does shed some light on different national attitudes to
the subject. I don't think there's a deep rift between formalist and
anti-formalist poets in the UK as there seems to be in the US - though there
are of course plenty of other rifts in our poetic culture. I get the
impression that to write in form in the US is tantamount to announcing that
you disapprove of everything modern and postmodern. (Well, perhaps not, but
it is at least a gesture that needs explaining if it's not to be understood
as an extremely conservative one.)
Best wishes
Matthew
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Jones <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 29 July 2001 01:56
Subject: Re: Interview with Matthew Francis (Featured Poet #2, new series)
>On Saturday 28 July 2001 01:07, you wrote:
>> Probably the sense that the novel is in thrall to a stifling realism is a
>> personal hangup of mine (and may also be related to the fact that I don't
>> know many people who like the kind of novels I do).
>
>Matthew, you aren't the only one. I have spent some dozen years pondering
how
>to write it differently, so this don't happen. I have looked to JG Ballard,
>Burroughs (Wild Boys I find interesting) , Genet, and cyberpunk as a vague
>gothic bastard line, to possibly find ways out of this problem.
>
>Also glad to hear you don't like the later Gibson books, so much. I have
been
>trying to read _Mona Lisa Overdrive_ but have decided I have reached that
>stage of my life where I can say: if I don't want to read it then I simply
>won't.
>
>I need to print out your poems provided on this list and give them a better
>read. After over 20 years of on screen editing (going back to when Bill
Gates
>was still a pimply teenage geek pre-Microsoft) I still prefer to read on
>paper. I was sort of hoping some others in the day to day business of doing
>critical readings could comment on the poems. I have some suspicions also
>about this term, the new formalism, which I understood (or misunderstood)
>your poems where posted in reference to. I understand formalism in a
precise
>technical sense in aesthetics and was thinking mechanics (as distinct from
>mechanism) may be a better way for me to think about the poems. That is,
>rather then thinking in formalist terms to describe poetry, thinking the
>mechanics of poetry. This way I may learn something new rather then going
>over old ground and being caught in a repetition which will fail to solve
my
>own technical problems. Each writer puts together their own tool box in
their
>own way, of course, so I am not being prescriptive here, btw.
>
>
>best wishes
>
>Chris Jones.
>
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