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<p class='description'><span>A weblog focused on contemporary poetry and poetics.</span></p>
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Showing posts with label <b>Metacommentary</b>. <a href="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/">Show all posts</a>
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<div class='status-msg-hidden'>Showing posts with label <b>Metacommentary</b>. <a href="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/">Show all posts</a></div>
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<h2 class='date-header'><span>Saturday, October 12, 2002</span></h2>

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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Tom Bell writes:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
Ron,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Is there
room on your blog for a consideration of &#8220;asyntactical tactics of Language poetry?&#8221;
<span class="GramE">(p. 13 in O&#8217;Leary&#8217;s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gnostic
Contagion: Robert Duncan and the Poetry of Illness</i>?).</span> This struck me
as a misapprehension that is probably common but I&#8217;m not sure why as I can&#8217;t
tell if the &#8216;<span class="GramE">a</span>&#8217; in asyntactical is to be read like the
&#8216;a&#8217; in agnostic or the &#8216;a&#8217; in atheistic. Actually, I don&#8217;t think either
applies?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I can&#8217;t say that I know Leary&#8217;s text, but I&#8217;ve heard
that charge before. It&#8217;s one of my <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Top
10 Myths about Language Poetry</b>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">Language poetry
is non-narrative<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">Language poetry
is a- (or anti-) syntactical <br />
(alternate version: language poetry = word salad)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">Language poetry
is academic<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">Language poetry
is poetry written to prove a theory<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">Language poetry
is New Criticism with a human face<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">Language poetry
has no humor<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">Language poetry
has no interest in people<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">Language poetry
began in 1978<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">Language poetry
is anything written since 1978 <br />
(alternate versions: since 1970; since 1990)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">Language poetry
is anything &#8220;I don&#8217;t understand&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Some of these of course are simply silly. Of the 40
writers included in <span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> the </i></span><st1:country-region><st1:place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">America</span></i></st1:place></st1:country-region><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">n Tree</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial;">, exactly eight have (or have had) tenure track
positions in college-level literature programs. Of those eight, three (Watten,
Perelman, Davidson) were hired as modernists rather than as poets, while David
Bromige was hired onto the </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="font-family: Arial;">Sonoma</span></st1:placename><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="font-family: Arial;">State</span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">
faculty before anybody there had ever heard the dread phrase &#8220;language-centered
writing.&#8221; This leaves exactly four human beings who could plausibly have been
hired in part for their accomplishments as poets related to the social
phenomenon that is langpo: Bernstein at </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">Buffalo</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial;">, Hejinian only very recently at Berkeley, and Susan
&amp; Fanny Howe, both now retired. More language poets work in the computer
industry, frankly.*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">But to tackle the non-narrative &amp; word salad
canards, <span class="GramE">lets</span> take a look at some recent work from
Bruce Andrews&#8217; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.chbooks.com/tech/books.cgi?bk=lip_service">Lip Service</a></i>,
a &#8220;recasting&#8221; of Dante&#8217;s <span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paradiso</i></span>.
This passage comes from &#8220;Moon I,&#8221; the first piece in the second section of this
book:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .4in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Charm Master, let&#8217;s say I repeat mere
outline of<br />
somehow pumps<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>look I
lose in looks<br />
&#8217;to become&#8217; &amp; &#8216;to appear&#8217; are the same<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a <span class="SpellE">contrario</span> goof</i>,
a spell behaved<br />
souvenir pinch painted wardens<br />
scared to fake redress by projective graphic lids<br />
laid eyes on &#8211; what opals, what clovers, eye-level stress<br />
imagery sale cipher fitted to inwards as if<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span>into the distance:<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span class="SpellE">simulcrayon</span> <span class="SpellE">scopafidelity</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Andrews describes his process on the back cover of
the Coach House volume in very straightforward terms: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
Its &#8216;<span class="SpellE">christmases</span> of the
heart in syllables&#8217; take Dante&#8217;s thematic cues &amp; path through ten concentric
planetary bodies to <span class="SpellE">rechoreograph</span> several years&#8217;
worth of poetic raw material of mine &#8211; on love, erotic intimacy, gender
socialization &amp; the body. Dante&#8217;s topics &amp; <span class="SpellE">tercents</span>
&amp; punctuation give its 100 parts their internal shape, with a drastic constructivism
of syntax, with denotations &amp; fluidities magnetizing its word-to-word
attractions or <span class="GramE">pushes</span> &amp; pulls as &#8216;valedictory
honeymoon burns in the pagination&#8217;.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">What <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lip
Service</i> is not, then, is either free writing or a homophonic translation of
</span><st1:place><span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Para</span></i></span></st1:place><span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">diso</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">. Its actual
relation to Dante&#8217;s work is at the level of structure &#8211; akin perhaps to Joyce&#8217;s
use of Homer&#8217;s poem in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ulysses</i> but
with one eye toward the exoskeletal features of the text. Without going into
the thematic correspondences between Dante&#8217;s work and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lip Service</i>, the passage above &#8211; picked primarily because I want to
think a little about that remarkable last line &#8211; seems to me perfectly
readable. It is neither <span class="SpellE">asyntactic</span> nor non-narrative.
Built out of Andrews&#8217; reservoir of &#8220;poetic raw material,&#8221; one could conceivably
argue that it is a hodge-podge of found language, jumbled together into an
aesthetically pleasing shape. <span class="GramE">But a closer reading reveals &#8211;
constantly, throughout the entire </span></span><st1:state><st1:place><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">tex</span></span></st1:place></st1:state><span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">t &#8211; that more is going on.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The opening line of this passage is an address to a
named <span class="GramE">Other</span> &amp; addresses, in fact, the form of the
poem itself (with the articles removed a la Ginsberg). The next line appears to
shift context entirely &amp; in fact does. Doing so, the language moves away
from comment toward prosody, thus it also <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pumps.</i>
But that is as much a comment on the form as was the prior line. The third line
shifts again. As it does, it invokes two other aspects of language &#8211; its role
as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">embodiment of voice</i>, thus
insinuating character, and as depicter of the visual. The line is a good
example, actually, of Andrews&#8217; sense of humor, which generally has a lighter or
<span class="GramE">more mellow</span> touch in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lip Service</i> than the biting sarcasm of his earlier writing. The
humor is couched precisely in the alliteration of the line itself: &#8220;look I like
lose in looks.&#8221; Looking here may lead to a sense of presence &#8211; we hear a voice,
perfectly identifiable with that first line to the Charm Master &#8211; but we don&#8217;t
see so much as we hear. The fourth line in the passage can be read as a direct
comment on the problem: you appear, therefore you are. The italicized phrase in
the sixth line is a metacomment on the entire passage, joining (by no
coincidence) Italian to a noun associated with Allen Ginsberg. Andrews is
invoking multiple lines of simultaneous heritage here. The phrase that is not
italicized (i.e. in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">roman</i> type) is
itself </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial;">furth</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial;">er metacomment &#8211; with a soft pun echoing out from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spell</i> to an absent <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spelling.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Metacommentary, the use of one line as a kind of an
equivalence with its predecessor, but composed in such a fashion as to also (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">déjà toujours)</i> further the argument, is
a fundamental poetic process, proceeding forward by operating precisely along
what Roman Jakobson used to characterize as the vertical axis of language.
While it is not identical to metaphor, the process is not far removed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The four terms of the next line &#8220;souvenir pinch
painted wardens&#8221; can be read as a single complex noun phrase <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> as four characterizations of a
writer&#8217;s relation to the use of appropriated language. A halfway attentive
reader will even hear the joke in the term <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wardens</i>,
that old double meaning of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">parole</i>.
The line which follows is also a complex phrase, one that invokes multiple
approaches to contemporary writing:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">as trauma
testimony (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">scared</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">as sincerity (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to fake</i>), a concept that insinuates both
Zukofsky&#8217;s test of poetry as well as the mock humility of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Poetry Review</i> free verse<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">as identarian
advocacy (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">redress</i>) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">as both &#8211; and
the contradiction here is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i>
accidental &#8211; persona (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">by projective</i>)
and voice-as-breath-as-persona (Black mountain projectivism)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">as sight,
depiction (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">graphic</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; tab-stops: list 1.0in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.25in;">
&lt;![if !supportLists]&gt;<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">&#167;<span style="font: 7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span>&lt;![endif]&gt;<span style="font-family: Arial;">as object,
closed containers of content (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lids</i>),
with of course that back-pun towards sight hidden in the suggested &#8220;eyelids&#8221;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The following directly
addresses language&#8217;s relationship to sight &#8211; one of the most interesting and
still under-theorized linguistic dimensions we have &#8211; but ends it with a term (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">stress</i>) that also invokes metrics &amp;
does so after bringing in the visual domain not a specifics but as categories (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what X, what Y</i>). The line after this &#8211;
&#8220;imagery sale cipher fitted to inwards as if&#8221; &#8211; is the most polemic in this
passage, suggesting as it does that visual details are in fact mechanisms by
which the language of the written pulls the reader into a mode of subjective
acceptance. The next-to-last-line here, &#8220;into the distance,&#8221; <span class="GramE">follows,</span>
suggesting that this interiority is thus projected outward as if real or
objective. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Which
brings us to our pair of neologisms: <span class="SpellE"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">simulcrayon</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <span class="SpellE">scopafidelity</span>.</i></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial;">The first jokingly characterizes the omnipresence of immanence&#8217;s lush <span class="SpellE">visuality</span> &#8211; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">it&#8217;s just
there, everywhere.</i> The second suggests that the allegiance of the visual
world is to a state that could be characterized as psychotropic or drugged. It
projects us, and is as much an element of ideology in the <span class="SpellE">Althusserian</span>
sense of that term as any aural or vulgarly political paradigm. It constitutes
the field of our interior lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">None of this is rocket
science. I haven&#8217;t even broached the question of Dante and the layers of
meaning waiting at that level. But I&#8217;ve performed this sort of reading exercise
before with texts by writers as diverse as Charles Bernstein &amp; </span><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">Rae Armantrout</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;">. Andrews is using poetry to make an argument here,
quite like Dante, and the exposition is hardly impenetrable. Nor is his thesis
so revolutionary that it should cause a reader to stumble. None of it requires
the kind of mind-numbing detail that I&#8217;ve laid out here &#8211; a casual reader
should be able to sense almost all of this just perusing the text. Any college
senior, regardless of major, who can&#8217;t pick up 80 percent of it just by reading
the passage above ought to demand a refund of his or her tuition &#8211; because this
isn&#8217;t scholarship, <span class="GramE">it&#8217;s</span> literacy. And the inability to
do this suggests a pretty sad state of affairs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I am amazed, therefore,
and invariably depressed, whenever I see &#8211; as I do too often in even our most
famous literary critics &amp; in more than a few poets &#8211; that this basic level
of reading competence appears to be missing. It&#8217;s almost a form of aphasia, as
though the reader were a citizen of the cinematic city of </span><st1:city><st1:place><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Pleasantville</span></i></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Arial;"> before the advent of color. Thus I take Andrews&#8217;
suggestion that the <span class="GramE">vocabulary of color itself, and all the
other linguistic minutiae of the &#8220;reality effect,&#8221; including voice, projection,
even character, are</span> a part of this conspiracy to make idiots of us all
quite seriously. How else explain how someone like <a href="http://www.ablemuse.com/poetry/rwakefield-boy.htm">Richard Wakefield</a> cannot
see what is wonderful, say, in the work of Jena Osman? How else explain the
idea that language poetry is either asyntactical or non-narrative?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;&nbsp; </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">* Count them: Kit Robinson, Alan
Bernheimer, James Sherry, </span><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Tom Mandel</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> and myself</span><span style="font-family: Arial;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>October</b><br /><br />Madrid<br />with Charles Bernstein & Susan Bee<br /><br />Barcelona<br /><div><br /><br />Saragossa?<br /><br /><b>November</b><br /><br />Rome?<div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>
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<li><a href='http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1544'>Academy of American Poets</a></li>
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<h2 class='title'>Ketjak</h2>
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<a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10742.php">I: The Age of Huts<br /><br /></a>             <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10742.php"><img src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/u_VsYLU9NS_tJXOrl6A4RM1Dne7QkuSslpBc0StgKSXXoIDStYoXqSwDo2tuxST00QD3ynVJH4yjAhcEzTWyM0F_RriCRx9yZdyygceY2wm-%3Ds0-d" /></a><br /><br /><br />II: Tjanting<br /><br /><a href="https://www.saltpublishing.com/products/tjanting-9781876857196"><img src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/efy1lIcVIKeKSdy_WUDIxV8WLN0OJmA3f7enQ2XDwxwt7Bh5ssfQQAkW_o4oG6FqrB1RGf7CX-Rw-VQ4u36RIuwSsCMxWjjHFDP4c7CbW2d_%3Ds0-d" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Alphabet,1897.aspx">III: The Alphabet<br /><br /></a><a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Alphabet,1897.aspx"><img id="ctl00_MainContent_ProductInfo1_ctl00_PrimaryImage_PrimaryImage" onclick="javascript:window.open(&#39;http://www.uapress.ua.edu//images/temp/212-1897-Product_LargeToMediumImage.jpeg&#39;, 1, &#39;resizable=1, width=500, height=700&#39;)" src="https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mirrors/ronsilliman.blogspot.com/images/lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/OnaMjXm2h6XxneM04RgHx1Bkf2Wi9UE3a8c3o0NDvW5wXo7BK3MaM5VP9YfbEIpHYxAstTorwhNW4lhhkNuua5bDX7Ogr2UgZ1NMDDjeh-0bNnuo-WH-9pGHIR6lv-4-_UDHVNe36xB6%3Ds0-d" style="border: 1px solid Gray;" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div>IV. from Universe</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>
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<h2 class='title'>Other Books in Print</h2>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">MEMOIRS &amp; COLLABORATIONS</span><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Leningrad-American-Writers-Soviet-Union/dp/1562790056">Leningrad</a><br /><a href="http://www.thegrandpiano.org/">The Grand Piano</a><br /><a href="https://www.saltpublishing.com/products/under-albany-9781844710515">Under Albany</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">CRITICISM</span><br /><a href="http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/0937804207/the-new-sentence.aspx">The New Sentence</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">ANTHOLOGY</span><br /><a href="https://secure.touchnet.com/C22921_ustores/web/classic/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCTID=327&SINGLESTORE=true">In The American Tree</a><br /><br /><br /><br />
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<br /><img alt="" src="file%3A///Users/Lynn/Desktop/silliman2a.jpg" / /><img alt="" src="file%3A///Users/Lynn/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/moz-screenshot.png" / /><span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">RON SILLIMAN</span> has written and edited 40 books, and had his poetry and criticism translated into 16 languages. Silliman was a 2012 Kelly Writers House Fellow, the 2010 recipient of the Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation, a 2003 Literary Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts, a 2002 Fellow of the Pennsylvania Arts Council, and a 1998 Pew Fellow in the Arts. Silliman has a plaque in the walk dedicated to poetry in his home town of Berkeley and a sculpture in the Transit Center of Bury, Lancaster, a part of the Irwell Sculpture Trail. He lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />(c) 2002-2019 by Ron Silliman.
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