Jeffrey Side:
Sean….point by point
1) “Your logic is really very flawed, Jeffrey”
How so? All I was doing was pressing you on the difference between non-opaque avant-garde poetry and non-opaque mainstream poetry, which both hold content as the a feature.
2) “Its pretty dull to try and argue using such ludicrously vague terms.”
But you do this yourself when you say “both 'avant' and 'mainstream' poetries are so wildly various its impossible to make some kind of hard and fast distinction”.
Either we know what avant-garde poetry is or we don’t.
3) “Whatever, opacity certainly doesn't cut it as a distinction.”
But what does, then? That’s all I’m asking.
4) “Anyway, your whole point about a politicised avant-garde is basically wrong because (1) it imagines that any text's political efficacy can only be measured by its transparacy, and that a political writer must write clearly and simply, which would have been news to Marx, for one,
How can any political idea or message be conveyed, then? Marx didn’t write political avant-garde poetry as far as I know.
5) and (2) it seems to think that all poets do is write poems, and ignores the possibility that poets who try and write politically may be also engaged in actual political work that in its turn will inform their writing.
If they are engaged in actual political work then that is not relevant to the political efficacy of their poetry. They are separate issues. But I’m not talking about poets in general who may write clearly and have a penchant for activism. I’m talking about avant-garde poetry claiming to achieve what activism can.
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