Simulcast: Four Experiments in Criticism (Modern and Contemporary Poetics) - Hardcover

Friedlander, Benjamin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0817311661 ISBN 13: 9780817311667

Verlag: UNIV OF ALABAMA PR, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

A provocative overview of avant-garde American poetry of the past 25 years that raises important questions about the practice of criticism

Simulcast offers long overdue, highly opinionated, and penetrating examinations of a flourishing movement in American letters by one of its most perceptive practitioners. The four “experiments” in literary criticism gathered in this volume vary in style and point of view. Taken together, they reassess the fundamental relationship between poetry and criticism.
 
“The Anti-Hegemony Project” is a satire, employing the rhetoric of journalism and the colloquial exchanges of online fan groups to analyze one of the earliest appearances of a poetry community on the World Wide Web: the “Poetics List” maintained at the State University of New York, Buffalo. “Poe’s Poetics and Selected Essays” is a collection of polemical essays on subjects ranging from modernism to language poetry. The third experiment, “The Literati of San Francisco,” is a detailed portrait of the figures and ideas at the heart of an important literary scene a decade after language poetry’s inception. The final essay, “A Short History of Language Poetry,” provides a less polemical, more sober and even-handed analysis of that movement from its origins to the present and its prospects for the future.
 
These critical interventions and essays are important studies of an evolving poetic field, but they also represent an evolution in criticism itself. Friedlander’s unorthodox methodology is to create a critical text by rewriting prior examples of criticism, among them Jean Wahl’s A Short History of Existentialism and Edgar Allan Poe’s "Literati of New York City." The resulting critiques are themselves a kind of poetry. They explore the issues of style versus substance, artifice versus authenticity, and plausibility versus truth, while the shifts in perspective call into question the authority of any one critical account.
 

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Benjamin Friedlander is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Maine and author of the books of poetry A Knot Is Not a Tangle and Time Rations.

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SIMULCAST

Four Experiments in CriticismBy Benjamin Friedlander

THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS

Copyright © 2004 Benjamin Friedlander
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8173-1166-7

Contents

Acknowledgments...................................................viiIntroduction: Criticism as Applied Poetry.........................1The Cultural Work of Plagiarism...................................5Descriptions of an Imaginary Universe.............................16From Satire to Criticism..........................................35Simulcast.........................................................51The Anti-Hegemony Project.........................................69The AHP by "Edgar Allen Poe"......................................71An AHP Dossier....................................................82Poe's Poetics and Selected Essays.................................119Letter to B-.....................................................121The Poetic Principle..............................................128Gertrude Stein: A Retrospective Criticism.........................145Mr. Rasula's History..............................................159Blockage, Breakdown, Baffle.......................................170Mr. Daly's Polemic................................................185The Literati of San Francisco.....................................197Bob Perelman......................................................202Andrew Schelling..................................................205Robert Grenier....................................................207Eileen Corder.....................................................209Michael Palmer....................................................213Nathaniel Mackey..................................................215Beverly Dahlen....................................................217Ted Pearson.......................................................223David Melnick.....................................................225Stephen Rodefer...................................................226Robert Duncan.....................................................231Carla Harryman....................................................237Ron Silliman......................................................238Benjamin Friedlander..............................................240Tom Mandel........................................................242Steve Benson......................................................243Lyn Hejinian......................................................247Barrett Watten....................................................253Norma Cole........................................................255Kathleen Fraser...................................................261Pat Reed..........................................................262Kit Robinson......................................................266A Short History of Language Poetry................................269Clark Coolidge....................................................273Ron Silliman, Barrett Watten and Lyn Hejinian.....................276Charles Bernstein.................................................289Critique of Language Poetry.......................................293Roundtable Discussion of Language Poetry..........................295Notes.............................................................309Index.............................................................341

Chapter One

THE ANTI-HEGEMONY PROJECT

The AHP by "Edgar Allen Poe"

A satire, pointedly such, at the present day, and especially by American poets, is a welcome novelty, indeed. We have really done very little in the line upon this side of the Atlantic-nothing, certainly, of importance-Kenneth Koch's cheerful poems and the doggerel verse of Ogden Nash and Dorothy Parker to the contrary notwithstanding. Some things we have produced, to be sure, which were excellent in the way of burlesque, without intending a syllable that was not utterly solemn and serious. Poems, plays, fictions, essays, epigrams, and memoirs, written by poets and possessed of this unintentional excellence, we would have no difficulty in designating by the dozen; but, in the matter of directly meant and genuine satire, especially in or concerning verse, it cannot be denied that we are sadly deficient. And yet, let it be said, while we are not, as a literary people, exactly equal to "The Dunciad"-while we have no pretensions to adopting a Popish cadence-in short, while we are no satirists ourselves, there can be no question that we answer sufficiently well as subjects for satire.

We repeat that we were glad to see this work of Mr. Funkhouser and company abroad on the Internet; first, because it was something new under the sun; secondly, because, in many respects, it was well executed; and, thirdly, because, in the universal corruption and rigmarole amid which we gasp for breath, it was really a pleasant thing to get even one accidental whiff of the unadulterated air of truth.

A brief history is sufficient to give the satire's overall dimensions. In February of 1995, a series of news briefs, modeled in style and format on those of the "clari. news hierarchy," began to appear on Charles Bernstein's "Poetics List," which originates out of SUNY Buffalo. The contents varied, but inevitably reflected current goings-on in the "poetry world." Many of the items were surreal, but some had an almost prosaic verisimilitude. In one, the loquacious Tom Mandel became an affable retiree; in another, Ken Sherwood and Loss Glazier were called "Poetics Police"; in another, language poetry was blamed on tainted baby formula; in another, a "Save the NEA" effort was termed a cross-dressing fashion show. All of these interventions were identified as products of the "bleari. nooz hierarchy," and further attributed to "The Anti-Hegemony Project." With surprisingly little distortion, the various jargons of politics, fashion, crime, sports, and economics were used to explain the social and aesthetic workings of the Art of the Muse-and quite adequately. The point, as soon became clear, was simple: to show that poetry's sublime particularity is no such thing at all.

More remarkable than the AHP itself, however, was the utter silence that greeted the sudden broadcast of these stories. Indeed, until an item appeared transforming Barrett Watten into a killer whale-adapted from an item on the film "Free Willy"-there was no public comment of any sort. And even in this instance, in the chivalrous outcry of James Sherry, response was focused on the matter of authorship, the AHP's mysterious provenance having become a focal point for counter-critique. We emphasize that authorship and not source became the focal point, for while the stories had been posted from identifiable "accounts," the stories themselves were unsigned, and rumors began to circulate privately that the true author-if such there was-kept himself hid. Chris Funkhouser, from whose account many of the stories had been sent, quickly came forward to make a public statement to the effect that the "AHP" was a cooperative project. And soon enough, discussion died down again-or at least appeared to. Inevitably, however, the rumors themselves became subjects for AHP satire. In one, a tapeworm named "Benji" was said to have burrowed deeply into Charles Bernstein's personal computer; in another, attributed to CNN (the Co-Poetry News Network), AHP activity was blamed on a sentient robot gone mad on too much literature.

For the record, the AHP's interventions originated from the following persons'...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: UNIV OF ALABAMA PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0817311661
• ISBN 13: 9780817311667
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 360
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar