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At 02:24 PM 9/5/2002, you wrote: >Doug Barbour said, > > >Kent... > > >Hank, you, I, and many others, even Bernstein, ARE academics, > >(as well)... > >Weell, Doug, I don't know. I teach at a decidedly rural community >college. I am an "Instructor" of remedial composition and Beginning >Spanish. That is what I teach. Research and publication is not only >not a priority, it is frowned upon. Frankly, I think one could say that >I am an Academic in the sense that a bricklayer is an Architect. > >I don't dislike academics. Some of my best friends are >academics... And OK, OK, so I am, *in part* an academic, even if I >am of lower race. The point I was pointing to in that epigram (and >I've made this point more conventionally and expansively >elsewhere) is that it is foolish --as well as disingenuous-- to >continue to frame Language poetry as non or anti-academic. >Language poetry is academic poetry through and through and has >been becoming such with increasing insistence (that word is on >purpose) for the past number of years. Many of its old leading >figures have been building careers in academia; literary theorists >and journals are widely ga-ga over Language poetry; and creative >writing programs are increasingly staffed and studented by writers >whose poetics orbit the original = = = center. This last is a >complex phenomenon, of course, but undeniable-- the MacPoem or >I-centered poem is still rampant, obviously, and always will be, but >the "cool" creative writing students, of which there are legions, now >write "Language-like" poems. > >Again, this is not a bad thing. But the poetry Silliman advocates is >no longer outside the academy, nor is its "poetics" marginalized, in >any fair sense of the word, inside the academy. This fact, as I said, >is not ipso facto bad. But it has certain implications, some of which >may not be good for the fullest possible health of poetic experiment. > >Kent True dat, Kent. And, amen, really. Here's the interesting part. I would venture to say that Langpo is even more dominant in the academy then the McPoem of Billy Collins. But, Billy Collins' books sell much more than Ron Silliman or Charles Bernstein or Lynn Hejinian or Bruce Andrews, etc. Do those who consider themselves Langpos out there believe it has anything to do with the Marxist theoretical underpinnings that Ron articulates in the NEW SENTENCE? Does espousing an anti-capitalist subjective rhetoric have anything to do with this? Why does Billy Collins sell more than Susan Howe? And, do Langpos base their "Langpo is outside the academy" logic on book sales?