Many thanks to Keston for his typically useful and engaged message about women
poets in the US. I haven't seen the work of Carol Mirakove, Deirdre Kovac,
Sianne Ngai, and Andrea Brady. Would be interested to know how I could. I
might add, for example, René Gladman, who writes out of an unusual place. But
there's a lot of activity: Alicia Wing is another true original (see Gare du
Nord) on the SF-Los Angeles vector. Keston gets accurately the peculiar
feeling a Brit has in the US, love 'em as we do, and I have been noting
recently how his sheer intellectual energy is making some inroads over there.
Yes, Miles Champion, too, is getting noticed.
Glad to hear about Keith Tuma's new book from NWP. The notion of more
cooperation between Britain and America on publishing fronts is evidently one
essential key. It will probably require different small press structures in
Britain, and a more cooperative outlook: above all, less giving away of books
(I do this very little these days) -- let our friends buy the fuckers. Money
is the final key. If we can only forget our domestic wranglings and put the
energy into creating a broader enthusiasm, this could all be one of the most
valuable directions. The French have created a bridge to America and back
again -- rather a narrow one, admittedly, but a bridge all the same. Why
can't our own scene(s)?
What about a small press anthology of the really younger poets from both sides
of the Atlantic? A generous set of inclusions, as little limited by genre as
poetry politics will allow, and a partner to the Talisman, which is surely a
forerunner of much to come?
Doug
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