As publisher of _Out of Everywhere_, I thought I'd put my tuppence worth in
here. Nowhere within that anthology are contributors referred to as
"Language Poets". Some of the 30 poets, such as Hejinian, Harryman,
Armantrout, Darragh, are closely identified with what the world perceives
as the Language group. Other US poets - Fraser, the Howes, Waldrop - are
often associated with that milieu and have appeared previously in
anthologies and magazines along with the former group. Barbara Guest and
Bernadette Mayer go back a long way (Mayer has denied being a language
poet, but was a strong presence in the pages of L= magazine). The Canadians
appear to me to be a cognate grouping, with Brossard crossing the boundary
between "language-centred" writing and more mainstream feminist work. As
for the Brits ... O'Sullivan herself (who did a magnificent job of
selecting/editing OEE), together with Monk, Bergvall & Claire, are
associated with the "linguistically innovative" poetries we often hear at
SubVoicive readings in London, while Grace Lake seems to be a brilliant
one-off with (geographically) Cambridge connections and Denise Riley denies
vehemently that she is "linguistically innovative" at all (I believe she is
wrong).
What does all this mean? It means: read the poetry.
Marjorie is quite correct to imply that "language poetry" in the US has
become a generic identifying term for poetries of the "avant-garde" that
privilege the constructivist, materialist approach to language, the kinds
of poetry many folk on this list are interested in - but that covers a wide
ground indeed. Perhaps Americans are unaware that loose use of this term
raises hackles elsewhere as it is perceived as a form of US cultural
imperialism. Myself, I don't care.
The reason I initiated the _Out of Everywhere_ project is that I perceived
that, particularly in the US and Canada, "language-centred" writing in the
late 80s/early 90s was interestingly shifting towards more and more work by
women. A trend that lags still in Britain. I wanted to show cognate
developments.
As for "theory" - an unheralded development in the 80s was HOW(EVER)
magazine, edited by Kathleen Fraser, latterly with the help of Susan
Gevirtz. An extremely important forum for discussion among women writers,
many of them of the L= persuasion, and one of the seeds of OOE - but one
which is almost never even referred to by commentators who keep coming back
to the same few theoretical texts by Watten, Silliman and Bernstein (if
only to beat them with critical sticks).
Well that was a good deal more than tuppence worth - sorry.
K
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