Yeah, really, thanks Joe.
Especially, 'That is, literary culture (not just poetry!) no longer
has a meaningful relation with our culture-in-general, which in itself
no longer seems to serve the function of legitimizing political power
that it used to do (but it may still have a role in legitimizing
markets).'
And: 'Almost any sort of poetry writing or poetry life counts as
countercultural in a manifestly postliterate society. But that doesn't
mean we get to reclaim avant-garde status because a literary avant-
garde has to attack the literary establishment, and the latter simply
doesn't exist any more, at least not in the sense that "establishment"
ought to have (i.e., bearing some intrinsic relation to power). This
doesn't mean that poets have stopped competing for status and
recognition; nor have I resolved, or adequately raised, the question
of literary culture's relationship to the marketplace. But it seems
clear that the game has changed, and more radically than we've
realized, in just the past decade or so; and I'm not at all convinced
that what will take the old culture's place will much resemble the
field we're all still half-heartedly running up in down in, with the
avant-garde guarding one goalpost and the reactionaries guarding the
other (while proclaiming loudly that there is, in fact, no game taking
place).'
So that, yeah, here we are: 'Ours is a language art, and whatever else
we are likely to become as a species, it seems unlikely that we'll
become post-language. So there's room for the new—and perhaps, an
outside—after all.'
Speaking to one another here & on such blogs I guess....
Doug
On 12-Feb-08, at 3:25 PM, Joseph Duemer wrote:
> See Josh Corey's discussion of the "post-mainstream" (along with
> pictures of
> his new baby here<http://joshcorey.blogspot.com/2008/02/post-mainstream.html
> >.
> I think his analysis cuts through a lot of crap.
Douglas Barbour
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Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
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Drive right past that lady, that’s
St. As Is.
George Bowering
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