Dan Featherston, who edits A•Bacus these
days, has some thoughts on the question of editing & shape in today’s far
different literary landscape:
ron —
the diversity issue you raise is
something i've been thinking about a lot viz editing.
i think that despite the
great number of people published in a.bacus, there was an aesthetic stance under peter [ganick]'s editorship (1984-2000): primarily (though not
exclusively) language writing.
i've tried to expand this aesthetic
("language-influenced," "non-language influenced,"
"translation series," selection fr lisa jarnot's duncan
bio, etc.) in order to bring into the fold a greater diversity that reflects, i think, the many trajectories of "innovative"
writing over the past, say, 15 years. i've
also tried to focus more on younger/lesser known poets. next
year, for the 20-year anniversary of a.bacus, i'll be running issues
guest-edited by past contributors.
of course, all editing involves exclusion as well as
inclusion, but as you seem to point out, diversity can be a euphemism for
"lack of vision, lack of stance." having studied several years ago
under [clayton] eshleman, i take from him (for better and worse) the importance of
making a strong aesthetic/political stance, though i
think this has become much more complicated and difficult since, say, the
period when he was forming an aesthetic/political stance in the 1960's qua caterpillar: aesthetics and politics
have, it seems, become more balkanized. also, there is
now a blizzard of print and on-line journals devoted to innovative poetry,
which wasn't the case 30 years ago.
from my historical perspective (34-years-old), i see the aesthetic/ political positions a lot more
balkanized today than, say, 30 years ago, so the difficulty gets grafted onto
editing. part of me resists the sort of "fence" approach (i.e., no
stance) to editing, which can, i think, devolve into
a kind of epcot approach to terrain – "it's all
here in miniature!" and another, lesser part of me resists being too
partisan / narrow in my editing decisions.
all best,
dan
