edited by Paul Hoover
Second edition, 2013
The events
leading up to and what revealed itself to me:
While cruising
the book aisles of HMV, pre-pandemic era, I stumbled upon a used copy of the
above stated anthology and decided to give it a read. I had, some time prior to
this, paged through an edition of Norton’s Modern
Poetry [the copy of which I still retain] and — for whatever curious reason
— casually made comparisons between the two, as one does when one suddenly has
time on one’s hands, in isolation. A number of things initially struck me as
noteworthy.
Firstly, images
that repeated. Dogs — especially barking dogs — were of equal abundance in both
volumes, which I easily accepted as a reasonably commonplace occurrence, given:
pets, utility animals, dogs existing in both city and rural areas, et cetera, so,
okay. Next, the colour orange (or oranges, the fruit), I noticed was quite popular
within the modernist group [which surprised me, somewhat, that this colour, ‘exotic,’ really, as
opposed to…y’know?] while the colour blue [more conventional, mundane, even,
yes?] appeared most often within the postmodernist collection. Fine. Remember,
this is merely an informal observation. I leave any psychological and/or
zeitgeist interpretations to the varying specialists.
Secondly, more
women and cultural/ethnic minorities were featured among the postmodernist
group. Not overly surprising, given the cultural shifts that have taken place
over the time period. Speaking of which, two Canucks were invited to join the
ranks, the editor saying: “The work of two Canadian authors appear because they
have lived for a significant period of time in the United States or been
intimately involved in the development of a new practice influential in this
country.” Bravo, Christian Bök and Steve McCaffery!
Thirdly, a
majority of the poems/poets deal with urban issues/themes, with nature acting
as an adjunct [necessary, yes, but…] to the environmental construct. For
example, in the poem “Under the Bright Orchards” Gustaf Sobin opens with: “…ink’s
for the / phosphorous white eyelets, for sprinkling the / pages with / blown /
phonemes, a counterworld.” Where, in God’s name, is the orchard? It’s been
turned into language, the written word, a very urban [urbane?] and [a sadly, regularly
ridiculed] intellectual pursuit. The poem ends: “yes, here, in a shiver of /
blossoms, gloss of / winds, draws us — in / the / hollow coil of our own
scribbles — past.” Speaking strictly formally/structurally/verbally/imagistically,
I [personally] think this is a fascinatingly beautiful passage, beyond anything
it might ‘mean’ or ‘represent.’ In fact, I am content to simply read and
re-read it for its innate beauty; its crafts(manship). However, at some other
[perhaps further] point of, I dunno,
contemplation, part of this beauty [for me, again] is the fact that the passage
is open to interpretation(s), as: what does [for one small example] the term
‘past’ mean at the end? ‘Past’ as in time past? ‘Past’ as in past scribbles?
‘Past’ as in the wind blowing past? Or…? Intriguing.
In Marjorie
Welish’s poem “Possible Fires” she writes: “Let a leaf be cultural in this
world; then, let a leaf’s waxy index of antihistamine eventually be an event it
(the leaf) might not have issued.” Here, something as innocuous as a single
leaf becomes [in a flash!] a cultural event, a work of art, through the act of
writing.
Among the
postmodernists, Charles Bernstein writes: “The text calls upon the reader to be
actively involved in the process of constituting meaning… Reader as a producer
and consumer of meaning.” Robert Palk states: “It is not enough to let a poem
echo through your being, to play mystical chords upon your soul. The poem must
be understood and felt in its details; it asks for attention before transport.”
This, following T.S. Eliot’s earlier dictum [I paraphrase, purposely]: “Art
should be an escape from personality, not a wallowing in it.”
Paul Hoover (editor)
explains that postmodernist literature grew out of Dada, Situationism and
Oulipo, into language poetry, conceptual poetry, Newlipo, cyberpoetry
(including Flarf) and into the postlanguage lyric, with much of it being an
attempt to “do away with the author.” Kenneth Goldsmith says: “With the advent
of internet, it’s all fodder for the remix and re-creation of works of art:
free-floating toolboxes and strategies unmoored from context of historicity.”
In fact, Goldsmith’s writings consist of exact reproductions of previously
written texts. He “wrote” and published a 900-page book in which he retyped a
day’s copy of The New York Times. He
teaches a class called “Uncreative Writing” where students are rewarded for
plagiarism, identity theft, repurposing papers, patchwriting, sampling,
plundering, and stealing. Why go home and write something à la Gertrude Stein, say, in order to gain insight into her style?
Isn’t it better — and more advantageous — to copy out eight or ten pages, exactly, if you want to truly experience
the ‘Gertrude Stein’ method and manner? After all, isn’t this what musicians
and artists do all the time, copy, until they eventually create/develop their
own voice/signature?
(As an aside —
did you know; were you aware? — that one can paint as many exact reproductions
of Picasso, Bacon, Kahlo, or whomever, as one wants, even sell them, so long as
one signs their own name. It’s only a forgery and a crime to sign the original
artist’s name. It is the signature that is the true work of art, legally and
commercially speaking. Whereas in music, use more than two words from a popular
song and lawyers are on you like shit to a shovel. Why? Copyright law as it
relates to money. Which is the beauty (and freedom) of poetry: there is little
(if any) money to be made, ergo, no one bothers you, ergo, feel free to steal
away!)
Following the
sad fact of no monetary gain and slight recognition…
Fourthly,
reading the bios of each poet it was quite clear that the vast majority of them
teach (or taught) in colleges or universities. Moreover, not only were the
younger often mentored by the older, but each served to publish the other,
either in small magazines or anthologies or even in small presses built for the
purpose. In other words, many of these people would likely never have been
published if it wasn’t for the fact that they created opportunities for
themselves (and friends/associates) to support this type of literary engagement
and provide necessary platforms, whether within or outside the academic walls,
for them to participate. Fine. This is a tradition that applies to every sort
of experimental art, those of which would languish and die as yet another
“exquisite corpse” if left to depend on mainstream media, conservative
mind-sets, and public taste for its only survival.
Which brings me
(us) back to our two Canucks, Christian and Steve, also teachers practicing
their craft within the ivory towers along with a... Well, who and how many, no one
knows, because there are few presses/magazines in Canada that regularly publish
anything even remotely postmodern [huge kudos to those that do! (you know who
you are)]. And when, on the rare occasion, it does happen that an anthology
appears showcasing a small number of these relatively obscure personages [Christian
was involved with two that I’m aware of, one co-edited with Margaret Atwood,
the other with Greg Betts], it was more a bewailing than a celebration, more a
dirge than a paean — and not without a strong sense of apologia, I might add — the
volume clearly citing the general lack of support and/or appreciation for such
literary endeavours and their authors.
To be fair, I
don’t claim to love [or even enjoy] all of the poets or poems in this volume.
As well, when there is any attempt to package an individual poet into one group
or another — language, cyber, conceptual — the lines frequently blur. That
said, none of them are “wallowing in their personalities,” as is often the case
with a great number of so-called poets. I mean, really, let’s admit it, as a
rule, poetry is the lazy person’s art form: mix a few clichéd images with an
over-abundance of similes, a great dollop of heart-felt, gut-wrenching personal
sentiment, a sexy theme-du-jour, add Evian water (flat) & stir: voila, a poem! Or endless poems. If these
same people were forced to [instead] write an essay or a short story or [God
forbid] a novel based on their particular angst-ridden, too-serious-by-half, subject
matter, where they’d have to employ some semblance of rigor, skill and
knowledge of craft, they’d pack in their writing devices early and go back to
watching re-runs of “Friends” or making a show of trying to slash their ankles
with dull plastic knives. Whereas, there’s enough well-wrought and stimulating
stuff in the Norton’s to keep an open/curious mind pleasantly occupied for
hours. And who can’t love the term Flarf [Gary Sullivan claims to have found
the word online, on a police blotter, where some stoner had described marijuana
as ‘flarfy’] used to label a legitimate poetry movement, defined by Drew
Gardner as: “A smutty, expressive swan-bear hybrid at a clam bake,” the motive
of which is “the pure amusement of the online carnival.”
Not me. Send in
the freaking clowns.
[Hey, now, what’s
that sound? Outside the window: packs of orange and blue dogs barking the
wilderness.]
Stan Rogal's natural habitat is the wilds of
Toronto where he exists mainly on a diet of roots, berries and red wine. His
work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies throughout the known
(and lesser known) world. He is the author of 26 books, the most recent being a
novel, titled The Comic (Guernica Editions), not so funny given its
arrival coincides with the "Age of Isolation and Physical
Distancing," a Kafka-esque sort of humour.