sorry for any confusion Pam - i have been following some of the nth american blogs re a current debate around flarf and also saw on Laurie's post re the new anthology by Kinsella (and also Jill's post re same) some snarky comments about the 'experimental' versus the 'traditional/lyrical' - not wanting to offend anyone, i like aspects of the new and the old traditions. just wish i could read more. the cartoon you featured just connected to some of the thinking i've been doing recently.
it seems a shame to keep having circular discussions about what is poetry or what constitutes 'good' or 'bad' which set poets against each other.
i guess one can have favourites though, and i do, as well as having an interest in new ways of writing in my own practice.
i wish the act of making poetry could unite poets more, producing it and reading it, rather than expecting poets to take a side or select a style. even saying this, i'm wondering all the time about risk in my own work, and should i risk being less or more within a particular camp or movement.
i do think risk is important, some beautiful failures and successes. all i can do is hope i write better and more often.
i like the odd positional discussion myself, mostly for what it opens up - i wouldn't worry about anything too much though Pam, life is so short and worry just makes it shorter. (smiley face)
i'm wondering who said something akin to 'all writing is experiment' wcw or someone else? because i think maybe that is closest to what happens when the work moves onto a page.
the comment 'experiment what experiment' was more in line with the tv advert featuring a bloke talking about running into a charter boat and a woman hanging washing on the line, saying 'charter boat what charter boat' - making the bloke seem a dullard for running into the charter boat large as life in front of him.
referencing the cartoon you posted, and the comments from anon on the blogs i mentioned - well it made me think that most poets who complain about the experimental poetries and the poets who openly discuss using experiment (such as google sculpting, dice, collage, cut n paste, number selection, chance and appropriation of language strings etc.) - reminds me of the bloke on the advert talking about running into the charter boat in front of him, but he can't or won't see it ...
so i'm pretty sure that if some of the poets who complain most about experimental poetry could be convinced that all writing is experiment, then they might be less inclined to turn away from some pretty exciting work. maybe some experimental writing is more experimental than other writing - lyric, narrative, fragment, disjunctive, subjective, objective, post avant, language, the whole glad bag.
some work, some poets,would distrust the term or prefer not to see their own work as experimental. i think labels tend to put off a lot of poets (i am opposed to labels myself, but accept the need to have some positional term or reference for discussion) so i will be searching for a post projective fragment string or two soon in order to express some non linear chance driven experiments of my own...
i've made some pretty shabby inroads in my collaborations with erica/erika the language programme - had some fun with it and still working on them from time to time.
ps angela gardner has an interview with Laurie in the next foam:e due early march, as well as a great new poem from him, i'll post a link on my blog when the issue goes live.
Maybe writing poetry today, as opposed to past periods, even the recent past, is about forming communities. Not a bad idea if it means that many people are writing who might otherwise be a little intimidated away from doing so. Anyway, if different individual communities form, then each community stands up for its 'rights' and so I think we may try to understand it as not fighting but as a number of different groups all forming themselves around some sort of project of self-realization. I do not really keep up in that way, so I wouldn't necessarily know, however. (From Robert Mueller.)
I want to follow up by recommending the poems by Chickee Chickston and Jordan Davis from Flarf feature in Jacket #30. They are funny, and good, and do not seem particularly encoded with experimental processes. It would be easy in a general way to appreciate them and do all the other things people like to do with the poetry that they read. Therefore, is Flarf onto something? Maybe so. (From Robert Mueller.)
Ok, so flarfing, which I just did a bit of by the way, is different from the experiment where you write a poem while scracthing behind your ear with your other hand; and you can either indicate in the poem or the title that you wrote the poem that way or you can choose not to reveal (perhaps wisely) that you wrote the poem that way. (From Robert Mueller.)
(PB with apologies to Chester Gould)
10 comments:
o cringe (but with the full belly laugh) experiment - what experiment
hmmm - could just as well be
'lyrical free verse - what lyrical free verse'
not sure what you mean Louise
glad you thought it was funny tho
Pam
sorry for any confusion Pam - i have been following some of the nth american blogs re a current debate around flarf and also saw on Laurie's post re the new anthology by Kinsella (and also Jill's post re same) some snarky comments about the 'experimental' versus the 'traditional/lyrical' - not wanting to offend anyone, i like aspects of the new and the old traditions. just wish i could read more. the cartoon you featured just connected to some of the thinking i've been doing recently.
it seems a shame to keep having circular discussions about what is poetry or what constitutes 'good' or 'bad' which set poets against each other.
i guess one can have favourites though, and i do, as well as having an interest in new ways of writing in my own practice.
i wish the act of making poetry could unite poets more, producing it and reading it, rather than expecting poets to take a side or select a style. even saying this, i'm wondering all the time about risk in my own work, and should i risk being less or more within a particular camp or movement.
i do think risk is important, some beautiful failures and successes. all i can do is hope i write better and more often.
Hi Louise,
You were right, the Dick Tracy speech bubble was meant to deflate squabbling with regard to the bloggings about JVK's anthology.
I think there IS 'experiment' that's all - and I wondered why you didn't.
Oppositions & differences keep us going. I can't imagine a poetry scene without disagreements.
Gawd a midey.
Maybe something's wrong with me. Should I worry ?
Pam
i like the odd positional discussion myself, mostly for what it opens up - i wouldn't worry about anything too much though Pam, life is so short and worry just makes it shorter. (smiley face)
i'm wondering who said something akin to 'all writing is experiment' wcw or someone else? because i think maybe that is closest to what happens when the work moves onto a page.
the comment 'experiment what experiment' was more in line with the tv advert featuring a bloke talking about running into a charter boat and a woman hanging washing on the line, saying 'charter boat what charter boat' - making the bloke seem a dullard for running into the charter boat large as life in front of him.
referencing the cartoon you posted, and the comments from anon on the blogs i mentioned - well it made me think that most poets who complain about the experimental poetries and the poets who openly discuss using experiment (such as google sculpting, dice, collage, cut n paste, number selection, chance and appropriation of language strings etc.) - reminds me of the bloke on the advert talking about running into the charter boat in front of him, but he can't or won't see it ...
so i'm pretty sure that if some of the poets who complain most about experimental poetry could be convinced that all writing is experiment, then they might be less inclined to turn away from some pretty exciting work. maybe some experimental writing is more experimental than other writing - lyric, narrative, fragment, disjunctive, subjective, objective, post avant, language, the whole glad bag.
some work, some poets,would distrust the term or prefer not to see their own work as experimental. i think labels tend to put off a lot of poets (i am opposed to labels myself, but accept the need to have some positional term or reference for discussion) so i will be searching for a post projective fragment string or two soon in order to express some non linear chance driven experiments of my own...
i've made some pretty shabby inroads in my collaborations with erica/erika the language programme - had some fun with it and still working on them from time to time.
ps angela gardner has an interview with Laurie in the next foam:e due early march, as well as a great new poem from him, i'll post a link on my blog when the issue goes live.
all the best
louise
Hi Louise,
I reckon labels are difficult to re-invent.
I'll look out for the next foam:e
Thanks
Pam
Maybe writing poetry today, as opposed to past periods, even the recent past, is about forming communities. Not a bad idea if it means that many people are writing who might otherwise be a little intimidated away from doing so. Anyway, if different individual communities form, then each community stands up for its 'rights' and so I think we may try to understand it as not fighting but as a number of different groups all forming themselves around some sort of project of self-realization. I do not really keep up in that way, so I wouldn't necessarily know, however. (From Robert Mueller.)
I want to follow up by recommending the poems by Chickee Chickston and Jordan Davis from Flarf feature in Jacket #30. They are funny, and good, and do not seem particularly encoded with experimental processes. It would be easy in a general way to appreciate them and do all the other things people like to do with the poetry that they read. Therefore, is Flarf onto something? Maybe so. (From Robert Mueller.)
Thanks Robert
weeks later, I know, but you have to flarf.
Ok, so flarfing, which I just did a bit of by the way, is different from the experiment where you write a poem while scracthing behind your ear with your other hand; and you can either indicate in the poem or the title that you wrote the poem that way or you can choose not to reveal (perhaps wisely) that you wrote the poem that way. (From Robert Mueller.)
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