It's more difficult than that, Tim. Like most "schools" Language
really wasn't--it was a group of very different very young poets who
published in a magazine called Language. All were in some way
connected to the editors. Rae Armantrout, as I remember, was a friend
of Ron Silliman's, who was a friend of... etc. What's meant by
Language is really a confrontational editorial stance (remember, they
were very young--most have mellowed considerably) and the then work
of a few of the "members." It would be far more useful for the sake
of clarity to specify poets and poems rather than using the blanket
term. Post-Language, as you point out, tends to be used in different
ways. Perhaps a fondness for disjunction is a defining trait. Tho
lots of folks, myself included, tend towards disjunction while
refusing membership, and of course it's been around for a very long time.
Best,
Mark
At 11:35 AM 4/15/2010, you wrote:
>Oh bother. No, I wouldn't put names here front channel - too scared of
>getting it all wrong and ruining my already ruined reputation from
>talking bollocks.
>
>The term post-Language has been used by some, including myself on
>occasion, to refer to the various poetics that has come out the other
>side of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E etc. This can include both those who were
>actually part of that L school in some way and those who have kind of
>carried on the project as it has morphed. But the term is problematic
>because it cannot refer to any one current poetic - there are various
>ones going on, even though none of them would be what they are if it
>wasn't for that original daddy. Etc. A bit vague? Personally I really
>like some strands, am suspicious of others and don't like some at all
>- the Brit-po archive will contain a few scrappy thoughts of mine on
>this topic, somewhere - hidden in some wrongly titled tag.
>
>Tim A.
>
>On 15 Apr 2010, at 15:16, John Herbert Cunningham wrote:
>
>>Here we go again, another problem with terms. I like your response,
>>Tim, but
>>I'm just not sure what you mean by 'post-Language school". Would you
>>mind
>>expanding on this and perhaps, for my edification, indicate some
>>of the
>>poets and works that you would include here? Thanks.
>
>Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University
>of California Press).
>http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
>
>"Not since the 1982 publication of Paul Auster's Random House Book
>of Twentieth Century French Poetry has a bilingual anthology so
>effectively broadened the sense of poetic terrain outside the United
>States and also created a superb collection of foreign poems in
>English. There is nothing else like it." John Palattella in The
>Nation
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