At 10:59 PM +0000 1/14/03, Liz Kirby wrote:
>I have a problem with the idea of the 'avant garde' - it kind of supposes
>that there is a 'garde' to be 'avent'. Is there really? To me it is more
>like myriad voices/relations to language. To identify as 'a-g' seems to be
>rather a self-conscious pose, a kind of 'look at me, I am clever and modern'
>
>I like the subtitle of 'out of everywhere' which is 'linguistically
>innovative poetry'
Yes, I agree. As Frances Presley (another linguistically innovative
British poet) points out it has traditionally and is still a term
which has never been especially friendly to women. Mina Loy springs
to mind... It's partly that militaristic metaphor, and also, as
Ionesco points out, that it's nonsensical, since how can one know
what's avant until long afterwards, since it's supposed to lead the
whole army, and the army isn't there until later?
I also have a problem with that "post-avant" phrase; it's a little
baby boomer, in that it seems to imply, "nothing has happened since
us", that the real energy happened _then_ and now is all a yawn.
Sort of, you weren't there in Carnaby Street, and you lot are all so
dull compared to us. I exaggerate, of course... but there is
seriously that issue of younger poets being accused of being
non-political, because the politics that exists in their work has
shifted to questions of say environmentalism and gender and so on.
(A very interesting essay on the Green movement by Amanda Lohrey in
the latest Quarterly Essay addresses this major political shift, from
ideologies of Right and Left to something else). It's possible that
something is happening now, but that it doesn't fit older definitions
of what's avant.
Best
Alison
--
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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