----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 4:38 PM
Subject: Re: Dead ends
> Kind of misses the point for an "experimental" poem, for want of another
> word, which begins and ends in a state of becoming. To the extent that the
> poem tells you its why it's a failure.
>
> Anyway, not something to worry about much.
>
> Mark
>
If a poem must be read as beginning and ending "in a state of becoming," and
if it fails insofar as it suggests a coherent them or insufficient
open-endedness; is it *really "open-ended"? Doesn't it obey as strict a
convention as any sonnet? I think the term "experimental" is MEANINGLESS in
poetry. A poem is either good or bad, its style is either adequate to its
content, or not. Stylistic fetishism, and dullness excused by sophisticated
"theory," are as deadly to poetic thought as timid and unimaginative
subject-matter. Language poets and "the school of quietude" are brothers in
decadence.
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