On Fri, 24 Oct 1997, Marjorie Perloff wrote:
> One thing I notice in this discussion is that in Britain "language poetry"
> seems roughly equivalent to the essays by Watten, bernstein, Perelman,
> Silliman.
I take your basic point, re the inventiveness of the "Out Of Everywhere"
set - and others - but wanted to put a word of caution about extrapolating
the vocal few on this list to an "in Britain" scenario: I'm sure you see
the point: many britpos not on list; many lurkers on list; many britpos on
and off this list who'd want to keep a certain distance between themselves
and the achievements of langpo etc etc.
I think "many" poets here (on the list and off) would recognise that the
original "LANGUAGE POETRY" is now largely a historical phenomenon, and be
happy to get on with talking about the plethora of post-lang-po
pluralities, and even pre-lang-po, as there were many "linguisically
innovative" practitioners both sides of the pond before there was lang-po.
None of this is intended to diminish the achievements of the sensu stricta
hardcore langpoists. But the term has now been extended so much, in so
many directions, as to be little more than a supermarket label - fresh
fish, language poetry, household cleaners - so that like so many poetic
"labels" it can generally be dispensed with other than as a general guide.
If it works as as such, good, I suppose - but then, I fear that from time
to time the cries of a reformatory back-to-basics zeal will surface, and
some of our works proscribed as being langpo-ly impure, or whatever...
RC
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