> It's rather difficult when things are given a conceptual sounding name and
> then one finds there isn't any conceptual basis to it. My impression is
> that
> 'materialist poetics' is by analogy with plastic arts.
most everything in poetry is flimsy gossamer but of course it's usually
presumed to only be the gossamer that can support full weight of the
imaginary. still, 'materialist poetics' is not particularly quixotic in its
meanings, david. if prynne tends toward marxism, then there's that sense of
'materialist': as in 'dialectical materialism'. but 'materialist poetics'
can also, as has been pointed out, be independent of the
'materialism/spiritualism' binary and refer, instead, to approaches to the
use of materials and media that, yes, are usually related to approaches in
other arts.
as has been remarked--can't remember if it was on this list or the poetics
list--it's only because writing remains 50 years behind the visual arts--as
it was when ws burroughs remarked that he and gysin were only doing what was
done in the visual arts many years before--that allows 'conceptual writing'
to be radical, given its modelling on conceptual art, something from the
sixties (50 years ago).
ja
http://vispo.com
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