>The trouble is we are post the lot and the poetics and practises of many
>of those designated as such often differ to an astonishing degree.
>Tim A.
I can see how if people consciously set up a group or movement then, later,
it is interesting to talk about it - and other labels in a broad sweep - but
can't there be a constructive non-coinage? - which is not a loss of nerve? -
It is the writing of the present moment. Isn't a poetics stated by the poet
interesting but not always instructive just as statements by Kandinsky or
Mondrian often bemuse rather than seem to be directly of a part with the
work? So self-description as avant-garde may later seem bizarre? The poem
already is statement of poetics. And someone like Susan Howe might describe
herself as a linguistic renovator so I'm not sure about 'innovation' as
being that broad a useful term altho I do think it is a good one. The broad
sweep of avant-garde or innovative always implies an alternation - from the
"mainstream" which really is an awful term. I don't like rivers. Er,
I've lost direction with this.
Edmund
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