What WAS linguistically innovative poetry I called this.
I attempted to define it against British Poetry Revival work (1960-75). The
work that came after in the 1980s, the early eighties being a time of
retrenchewment in alternative poetries. (Nobody commented on this bit) I
defined the 80s work coming to fruition against the original language
poetry moment in the States (plenty of comment on this,
symptomatically??)
Discussion revolved around a minor (but American) point in my piece:
the apparent choice betqween the formaL nd the social, a dichotomy that
Ben Watson exploded, reminding us that artyisitc events are social
entities.
(I shall re-write the end to avoid appearing the crossfire between certain
language poets. It's British poetry I wished to define.)
I was questioned about what devolutuion might mena for this? Fuck
knows.
Ken Edwards reminded me always to rememebsr the poetry when
speaking of poetics.
Thinking about that I'm less sure than I was on Saturday. I described
poetics as a semi-autonomous discourse, which I think it is, as it leaps
ahead, contrdicts, redefines, and upsets the poetry that trails behind or
leaps ahead. It must surely also generate a discourse history of its own
which means that it is always, at least implicitly, partaking of another set
of structures and assumptions and is not at all paracitic. Indeed, poetics
that were paracitic might not be interesting: they would be
self-explanation, like Craig Raine explaining his metaphors!
(it is difficult to comment on my own paper, of course.)
Robert
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