I'm reaming through yr post, dom, but what, in all honesty, can we do but
let ourselves be exposed to the contingent?

Yes, there shd be structures in place, but say if none of those structures
are _right?_.

I can happily agree, for example, with elements of Marxian critique of
society, but what answers does it provide? Formulaic violence? I can't go
along with that, I know I DO NOT have the right to support murder.

As for projects, they're the bane of my life, I just can't help developing
them, to which my instinctive reaction is to hide 'under the covers', as it
were.


Best


Dave


----- Original Message -----
From: "domfox" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 11:40 PM
Subject: Re: Postmodern?/more baroque


> Discourse on the topic of tact and maturity, especially the other
person's,
> has an uncanny tendency to veer towards the tactless and immature, and
> especially online where no discussion of etiquette can be certified
innocent
> of polemico-didactic intent. Alas.
>
> Whatever one supposes one thinks of the norms of bourgeois society, they
> aren't necessarily the only norms one might want to apply to poetry,
> assuming one wants to apply norms to poetry (some people want not to do
> this, although whether the desire can escape certain convolutions in
> practice is another matter). Perhaps more to the point: bourgeois society
> has an imperative to reach outside itself, to codify and commodify, which
> takes the form of an appetite for transgression, for evil. Wilfully
tactless
> and immature behaviour, of whatever kind, can be made highly congenial to
> the bourgeois if it is suitably packaged; and the formal artifice of
poetry
> can provide just such a package, as can the formal artifice of snuff-metal
> (or whatever the latest variety is called), or, pardon me, the formal
> artifice of ritualised sexual perversion.
>
> Perhaps it might be useful to distinguish projection from teleology, from
> normative standardisation before the fact. To have a project in mind is to
> have something one can expose to the contingencies of practice, to
> "empirical guilt" to borrow a phrase. That is, vis a vis spontaneity, it's
> all very well to talk about being exposed to the contingent, but what
after
> all is it that one is exposing?
>
> - Dominic
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 10:59 PM
> Subject: Re: Postmodern?/more baroque
>
>
> > You don't really mean that. Just throw anything at the page? Learn
nothing
> > from the practice of one's craft?
> >
> > Of course I could say that any prestructured project reifies hierarchy,
> but
> > that would be pretty dumb. Also tactless and (intellectually) immature.
> >
> > If you don't want to engage an argument just say so. This sort of
sidestep
> > just pisses me off. I have a hard time abiding political accusations or
> > fools in silence. Reminds me, I guess, of the endless arguments of my
> > adolescence about who was a better Trotskyist.
> >
> > While we're at it, you do, like most of us, suck at the trough of
> bourgeois
> > society. By the way.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > At 08:49 PM 9/10/2001 +0100, you wrote:
> > >On Mon, 10 Sep 2001 10:29:39 -0700, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
> > >wrote:
> > >
> > >>The links between the
> > >>>poet and the literary/cultural theorist is somehow unavoidable. I
> myself
> > >>>do not believe in spontaneity and I hope that behind each poet there
is
> a
> > >>>project not merely a vent of words, an outburst of tears or joy, the
> > >desire
> > >>>to give find expression for one's wrath.
> > >>
> > >>Theorists, some of them poets, will continue to theorize and
> occasionally
> > >>invent isms, but the impact of the link is certainly avoidable if
theory
> > >>follows from, is derived from, practice.
> > >>
> > >>Writing spontaneously doesn't mean writing egotistically. Writing with
a
> > >>project in mind often does. One is finally only protected from oneself
> by
> > >>tact and maturity.
> > >>
> > >>Mark
> > >
> > >By the way: tact and maturity are no reelvant measures for poetry.
> > >these are good measures for bourgeois society.
> > >
> > >erminia
> > >
> >
>