I have never understood the necessity for a political avant-garde poetry. I always thought that such poetry would need to have a widespread readership to make even a splash in the political sphere; and even that would be contingent on such poetry being transparent and easily understood by disinterested readers. This is not something the poetry of Prynne, for instance, can lay claim to.
If Cambridge Poetry in 2010 is more transparent syntactically (or moving towards it) than Prynne’s poetry, and, therefore, more discernable to a hoped-for wider readership, can we really say it is any longer an avant-garde poetry?
Not that avant-garde poetry necessarily should be inscrutable, but rather that striving for clarity for the sake of a political message, seems to be slightly perverse in such poetry.
Original Message:
"Cambridge Poetry and Political Ambition" by Robert Archambeau
http://samizdatblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/cambridge-poetry-and-political-ambition.html
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