Rebecca,

     What I was trying to say in my possibly intemperate and incoherent way
was that use of the phrase "avant-garde" seems to have become a perculiarly
USAmerican cliche (and by extension an internet one) that's regularly
bandied about and championed to the detriment of poetry.  The pros and cons
of 'avant-garde' tend to ignore its history and ignore the idea of the poem
as an experiment and the experimental movement in poetry.  I sent you bc a
note on this that John Cayley put out on webartery a couple of years back (I
sent it bc as i don't know if he ever polished it for publication but I'll
send a copy bc to anyone else interested)  I mentioned Loss as a teaser I
have to admit, but I also suspect that contributors to the anthology you
mentioned jhave never heard of him or his book as langpo and anything to do
with the poetics list have become UScentric cliches that like experimental
are bandied in the US rather than engaged.

     I'm afraid I don't have too much else to offer as i've never written it
down and sent it off as I haven't really seen a place to send it, that is an
outlet that's neither in the middle or 'edgy'.

tom

> >
> a slightly different understanding of 'avant-garde' as it
> is so fashionably named.   It does seem to me that this use by both
> the pros' and 'cons' moves the debate onto the edge and manages to
> avoid >dealing with the other characteristics of the work that is often
> relegated to this category.
>
> I'd like to hear more of your different definition of the avant-garde, for
I notice here that you use the word somewhat negatively, if not quite
perjoratively?  That 'so fashionably named,' and the idea that work is
'relegated to this category' makes it sound as if the term were a trash
basket disguised as a work of conceptual art?
>
> Also I would have thought that the avant-garde is a matter of the edges,
> wherever else it might be located, though Geyh's essay does note
> "This raises the question of what, or where, exactly the 'avant-garde'"
> is, now that the modernist and even postmodernist avant-gardes. . . have
been legitimized, "institutionalized" as it were, by the academy? The
margins, it seems are no longer quite as "marginal" as they once were"
>
> >I think this is a more important subset of what is dismissed as AG
> too
>
> What do you mean by _this_?  What are the other characteristics of the
> work? It seems your complaint is that work that is experimental is
relegated to and dismissed as avant-garde? But then, perhaps it's just that
since it's your annual appeal,I'm not familiar with your definitions, so
feel free to fill me in.
>
> Sorry if this is redundant, this server seems to be acting up, so while
the message seemed to go, I'm not sure it went, so I'll send it again,
though it may end up like an exercise in cloning.
>
>                         Best,
>
>                         Rebecca
>
>
>                                     Rebecca Seiferle
>                                     www.thedrunkenboat.com
>
>
>
>                                       ---------- Original
Message ----------------------------------
>                                     From:         tombell
<[log in to unmask]>
>                                     Reply-To:     Poetryetc provides a
venue for a dialogue relating to
>             poetry
>                                     and              poetics
<[log in to unmask]>
>                                     Date:         Sun, 19 Jan 2003
01:58:39 -0600