I've been perusing Ron Silliman's Blog site. Ron's notes there so far
are very informative, very useful, provocative, as one would expect.
His section on Bok's book and on Duncan's HD Book were
especially interesting. The following quote is from his Sept. 3 entry
on Barbara Guest and the "abstract lyric." The remark opens a
whole can of wormholes, it seems to me, and makes me think of
an epigram I wrote, part of the forthcoming _Epigramititis: 101
Living American Poets_. So I offer it below Ron's quote as a kind of
suggestive riposte. Of course, the whole topic is a pretty thick one,
its spacetime still unfolding. So this is just a little thought.
Ron says,
"So perhaps it is because the current generation of academic
poets seems as relevant to poetry as astrology does to astronomy,
the abstract lyric carries forward within itself aspects of a tradition
all but unheard elsewhere."
And my epigram:
Hank Lazer
He is author of a two-volume critical study,
published by Northwestern University Press,
and Dean for Academic Affairs at the University
of Alabama. The title of the two-volume set is
Opposing Poetries, wherein Language writing
is shown to stand in resolute opposition to
Academic verse.
cheers,
Kent
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