Hi Rebecca
>
>I agree with your sense of the spectrum. That's why I suggest
>"avant-garde" be viewed as adjectival or shift back into "avant-guard"
>which meant merely "and"--a kind of "in addition to," a sense of inclusion
>and possibility. In this sense, a poet might write formally _and_ have
>avant-garde work. I find some of the most interesting work is driven by a
>kind of formal sensibility which may sometimes take up residence in a
>particular form but, at other times, under other pressures, experiment. As
>I see it, the 'experimental' is always preoccupied in some sense with
>form, its sort of necessary angel. That's why I think the discourse with
>the other arts and the sciences, technology, etc., is particularly
>important, because the other 'languages' and models often provide a way of
>making one's way through the inarticulate, which the experimental is often
>at the edge of. I'm thinking here of the work of Cecilia Vicuna (there
>should be a tilda on that n) which is part performance poetry, part
>written poetry and translation, part installation art, and intimately
>connected to a Pervuian sensibility, like a quipu of sorts, those
>intricate assemblages of thread that were mathematical _and_ linguistic in
>the Incaic world.
I like a lot of this & agree. I guess this also applies to reception too
(as Alison's post about the person next to her at a reading by Padel
indicates). The engagement is important.
Finally, in one sense, we can only speak for ourselves (then, as critics,
we can pretend to speak for 'everyone'): I learn by doing, but also by
seeing what others have done. And eventually I find in some others what is
useful to my own work, & not in other others, so to speak.
bp used to talk about how much his work i sound poetry eventualy came to
influence what he did in what he called 'trad' poetry. I have certainly
found that performing sound poetry has helped to clarify possibilities in
other writing I do.
And, absolutely, experiment has to do with form, & any artist can learn
from the other arts.
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
We are stuck with technology when what we really want
is just stuff that works. How do you recognize
something that is still technology?
A good clue is if it comes with a manual.
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