Interesting. If Andrews thought then as he does now maybe some of his
old work would have a little more open vibration to it. A bit late
with some of this stuff though, isn't he? Nothing in the excerpt below
that any other modern poet has not mused upon at some point. I'll see
what I think when I've read the rest. Thanks Jeff.
Tim A.
On 2 Apr 2010, at 21:13, Jeffrey Side wrote:
> Bruce Andrews interview at The Argotist Online:
>
> http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Andrews%20interview.htm
>
>
> Excerpt:
>
> "Since I’m interested in the experience of the reader, I haven’t
> been interested in chance. Chance might seem to open the
> possibilities for the reader to the widest level, but often it
> doesn’t get the reader anywhere, it’s so open that nothing counts,
> nothing has any significance, none of the connections are designed
> to have any effect on the reader, and therefore it often seems like
> it ignores the reader, just as much as any type of closed textual
> work. So in a weird way chance and the old notion of intentionality
> end up having the same relationship to the reader, in both cases the
> reader is ignored. Either you don’t care what the reader makes of
> something because there’s not much to make of it, or you ignore the
> reader because you’ve already figured out what everything means,
> maybe they’ll get it maybe they won’t, but you don’t care either way
> because your job is to create this edifice, this autotelic text, as
> if it means by itself and doesn’t require the reader to get on
> board, and if the reader does have some interest in getting on board
> then they have to pay tuition to take the class to be told what
> things actually meant as if the lecturer is ventriloquizing the
> author. You know, if you read old lit crit, it’s often outrageous,
> the presumptiveness of it. I mean, “this means this, and I know
> because this is what the author meant.” I mean, who the fuck knows
> what the author meant? That’s always irritating to me, because it
> closes things down. But in a weird way, totally randomizing product
> does too."
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