Thanks Peter, I agree with you of course about mucky hybridism and am grateful for the names and detail in your post. I'm still immersed in Wound Scar Memories and its own vision of mucky hybridism, interspersed with reading Drew Milne's In Darkest Capital ---- all incidentally, his recent sequence Lichens for Marxists seemed to evolve partly out of bits of ur-text on Twitter which I think demonstrates that the relationship of social media to resultant poetry is not something easily generalized about.
best, M
>>>Responding to Michael P’s post of 12.27, with the two interesting blogposts – I found much very persuasive in the second of these (Johannes Goransson’s - It's STILL "TOO MUCH" – The Plague Ground of Poetry in the Age of Internets (Part 1)). I’m at present updating modernpoetry.org.uk – perhaps to abandon it, but with a proper send-off given to it. Tidy up the old Marie Celeste a little.
Anyway – one insight into the present state of whatever the poetry that Many of Us Like (say, “British Innovative Poetry” as a title) is, is that it is now pullulating & mutating energetically. All those creative writing academic courses may be having a positive creative effect – not by encouraging particular “””avant-garde””” formulas (always toujours derriere in fact by the time they get churned through academia), but by encouraging a breadth of approaches. Interesting poetry as I see it is, of course, still being written within the pure bloodstock of “The British Poetry Revival” of the 1960s (yeah! O offspring of Children of Albion & Grosseteste Review). Interesting poetry is increasingly being written by people engaged in various types of performance as a main focus – not only the Holly Pesters, & Hannah Silvas who have encountered the standard innovative poetry practices, but even ruder souls who engage in the sickening practice of poetry slams (I do draw lines somewhere), and taken energy from them. I found myself listing Melanie Branton after having read her posting on the Rebecca Watts piece (Accessibility vs Elitism), and looking at what else she had written. Some not interesting, but some, yes, it works, interestingly and directly and maybe subtly with it, and based on speech rhythms, rather than the rather dead notion of poedic meter, as comprehensible as this NewsList has demonstrated as the doctrine of the Trinity. And also Open Mics which are now being increasingly switched on, and encouraging audience participation in “””avant-garde””” poetry events (eg the wondrous Contraband events David Ashford organises in London, and many of the events Iris Columb is involved with).
Fusions too with practices & approaches derived from art (and even crafts), as in some of Iris C’s events (matching writing & live art), and all sorts of elements of “live writing” etc. And I find the art world even more nauseous than slam – the arrogance and corruption of money, coupled often with an excessive dose of academic theory. But its creative practices can breed well with language and introduce new concepts, new sources of innovation, new measures and voices and ways of hearing and reading. Variousness is crucial - A Various Art failed in not living up to its title.
So – the issue isn’t one of drawing lines and defending our fixed positions, our tiny little poetic worlds, but of seeing what’s out there in the language around usas it is used. And is exciting and allows in innovation. Preferably in ways we weren’t prepared for. Because that’s innovation, isn’t it? What may be the appeal of these things that are now coming up, and popular amongst les jeunes (to use the classic modernist phrasing)? What can even aged white-haired pensioners learn from them? New Year’s Resolution: "Avoid Retro Modernism – Do It New".
Joyelle McSweeney’s post (The "Future" of "Poetry") was fun, but all that “necrospastoral” is too close to the boredom of pastoral, without its pleasures. It rots your teeth with shit not sugar, because it thinks shit is more “real” than sugar. But its mucky hybridising is only to be encouraged.
best wishes
Peter
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