Oppen, "Of Being Numerous." All of "Maximus." Duncan, "Poem Beginning with
a Line by Pindar." Dorn, "Gunslinger."
At 05:58 AM 6/14/2004, Trevor Joyce wrote:
>> >Any suggestions as to where I might find work which has been
>>>conceived, 'from the ground up' in formal and technical terms, as
>>>political critique? (I'm deliberately not specifying *what* politics.)
>>
>>Charles Bernstein.
>>
>>-- Philip
>
>Yes. Having posed the question last night, I passed the small hours
>answering it to myself, and trying to refine it.
>
>Most obviously, the whole L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E project is a candidate,
>with Bernstein's work prominent. Any suggestions for specific texts,
>though, Philip?
>
>Part of the problem with my question, I suspect, is that it's too
>general. For example, Adrienne Rich's work has obviously a strong
>political drive, but while individual poems or sequences interest me,
>it's not because of formal innovation. Similarly, Lorine Niedecker's
>pared down austerity would seem to have have a political import, and
>it's indubitably formal. But, while I'm growing increasingly to love
>her work, the formal drive strikes me as privative: primarily a
>stripping away of grandiosities to reveal a core of worth.
>
>Maybe I'm still too attached to old grandiosities myself, but what
>I'm looking for is an augmentation of formal possibilities to enable
>political critique. Rukeyser certainly does seem to deliver some of
>that (thanks, Alison!), but since I only have extracts from The Book
>of the Dead in a Collected, I can't yet see how much.
>
>The best I could come up with overnight, as a contemporary, was Kamau
>Braithwaite. There's a lot there taken over from earlier pioneers,
>but there are clearly new dimensions of critique, formally enabled,
>which allow him deal with his specific political experience.
>
>Anyway, more suggestions eagerly awaited . . .
>
>Best,
>
>T
>--
>------------------------------------------------------
>http://www.soundeye.org/trevorjoyce
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