This doesn't surprise me at all Jeffrey. The relationship between
academia and the 'avant garde' makes it difficult, if not impossible,
for avant individuals ensconced in academia to face the problem
directly - when you are 'in' something it is hard to try to look at
what you are in from the outside. As I've tried to make very clear
before on this, you cannot hold individuals responsible for the
processes that have put them (through the limited choices available to
poets to wrap up their art and their economic survival in one package)
in such positions. Their response is often silence and in my
experience that is probably the most honest response to date. When
they have responded it has been either to dismiss the issue as gross
exaggeration, usually by citing how small and beleaguered their little
communities are compared with the more established and conventional
literary departments, or by accusing those who question the situation
as being anti-intellectual etc.
Neither argument, in my opinion, stands up. The relative size of their
influence, compared with the mainstream academics for example, is
irrelevant, because the problem of the increasing use of academic
qualifications in validating the poetry of those holding such
qualifications goes right across the board, whatever sort of poetry it
is. If anything the problem is even more heightened within avant
circles because of the 'difficult' nature of the poetry itself - and
difficult poetry lends itself more easily to the requirements of
academic exploration. The accusation of anti-intellectualism is in
some ways more problematic because, it seems to me, that in the
history of this thing the majority of those who attack the 'avant
garde' as being elitist and ivory tower are doing so from a general
position that would include anti-intellectualism. There are all sorts
of cultural and political reasons for this of course but it does make
the arguments of those of us who are definitely not anti-intellectual
appear to be part of that general opposition, which is understandable,
but wrong. If it wasn't 'wrong' then it would mean that their notion
of what it means to be intellectual would have to include its
artificial cushioning within safe parameters, something which in turn
would further increase the amount of ammunition for those who oppose it.
My own position on this is pretty clear, but I admit it is easy for me
to have this position because I am not within academia. Apart for the
the 'validation' problem (by far the biggest problem in my opinion)
mentioned above, my other concern is with the poetry itself, how its
existence as this thing ping-ponging between academy poet and academy
reader (I won't call them 'critic' because it seems to me that a lack
of any real criticism is part of the deal between the two) develops
within that incestuous environment. The ping-ponging continues as poet
becomes reader and reader becomes poet etc. For the life of me I
cannot see how this is healthy. Good poets might very well still
continue to write good poetry, or not, but I can definitely see how in
such a situation some mediocre poets with the right kind of applied
intelligence and nouse could thrive, which is so bloody depressing.
Currently most of the poets I know and whose work I really like and
admire are connected in some way with academia. Many of them are
friends too. I would really like them to talk about this problem, not
defensively but objectively.
Cheers
Tim A.
On 1 Jul 2012, at 14:59, Jeffrey Side wrote:
> From Bob Grumman's blog.
>
> Quote:
>
> "The existence of [The Argotist Online Feature "The Academisation of
> Avant-Garde Poetry"] has been fairly widely announced on the
> Internet. Jeff Side says they’ve drawn a lot of visitors to The
> Argotist Online, “ 23,000 visitors, 18,000 of which have viewed it
> for more than an hour.” What puzzles both him and me is that so far
> as we know, almost no one has responded to either the article or the
> responses to the article. There’s also a post-article interview of
> Jake [Berry] that no one’s said anything about that I know of. Why?
>
> [...] no academic I know of has so much as noted the existence of
> article and responses. I find this a fascinating example of the way
> the universities prevent the status quo from significantly changing
> in the arts, as for some fifty years they’ve prevented the American
> status quo in poetry from significantly changing.”
>
> http://poeticks.com/
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