Customer Reviews

The Marginalization of Poetry

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Another, relatively good-humoured skirmish in the latest round of the ongoing (read: interminable) Poetry Wars. For Perelman, Black Mountain, beat *and* New York School are all among L.A.N.G.U.A.G.E's ancestors; this is like comparing Congregationalists, Pentecostalists and Seventh Day Adventists, or sherry, port and madeira - the cross-over (Jesus loves us; they can get you drunk) is less important than the differences. Doctrine aside, though, this is thoughtful, closely argued work; I read him on 'the new sentence' (ch 4) with pleasure

charactezirin lingo writin is difficult. indeed, as perelman's lengthy discussion suggests, evun decidin wot to call it presents challenges. it seems appropriate thun dat dis relatively recent, igh profile discussion of lingo writin (perelman's preferred phrase) and poetics assumes a jagged, irresolute, and cukabillyntinuous form. openin wiv a poem dat challenges its own generic status, and closin wiv a relatively lighthearted dream-sequence imaginin a conversation in cartoon eavun betweun frank o'hara and roland barthes, dis self-consciously sui generis critical text declines attempts at authoritative definition or unified ruk, but nevertheless presents a relatively coherent set of critical gestures revolvin around a consistent group of concerns and practices. afta a survey of bof sympathetic and antipathetic efforts to characterize lingo writin and its adherents, perelman opts fa da least contestable of assertions: dat da movement began in san francisco and new york in da early seventies in response to da political climate followin da vietnam war (and da literary climate of poetry workshops and so-called confessional poetry); dat while "the initial phase of lingo writin is ova; da careers of da participants continue"; dat there is "widespread interest and controversy" ova da issues dat were and continue to be raised. lata, perelman risks more specific contentions, many ousein around da ruk dat "language writin is wickedest understood as a group phenomenon" wiv a tendency to "do away wiv da reada as a separable category" and dat dis critique of subjectivity involves important political implications. fusin readin and writin, poetry and criticism, perelman's movement unsurprisingly emerges as late twentief-century america's wicked levela of wot is regarded as arbitrary distinctions. much in da house is introductory and general, straightenin out misunderstandings, reformutalin conventional polemics, and renderin da movement's political and theoretic dimensions in more usa-friendly formulations. balancin da attention givun to ejinian, owe, and palma, perelman's readings oftun focus on less-discussed lingo writers, includin rae armantrout, carla arryman, and ron silliman. da mostest instructive surprise fa readers already familiar wiv lingo writin may be perelman's politically critical, though surprisingly non-partisan-and at times sympathetic readings-of unrelated writers includin frost, bishop, william stafford.