Monday, July 30, 2007

Let's assume for a moment (and it's a mighty good assumption) that I'm a young, naive writer, and that for the most part, I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground.

Let's further assume that I'm not up on my poetic movements, whether they're post- or pre-, Black Mountain, Black Arts, Nuyorican, beat, imagist, post-imagist, radical avant-garde, or anything annoyingly separated by d=a=s=h=e=s.

I can't speak as an expert on matters of poetics, or as a historian or what-not. But don't you think that when someone talks about some work being the "future of poetry," and that what they do just HAPPENS to be dead center in the midst of said future, it pays to be a tad suspicious?

2 comments:

OBermeo said...

it might pay to be suspicious but the scenario you describe happens all the time and people get sucked in left and right and the world still keeps spinnin.

and my question is: what ya gonna do about this person who is promising this fantastic future?

bjanepr said...

Hey Rich, so this post is a little cryptic. Name the harm. I think as poets/authors, if we are conscious or self-conscious about our place(s) within historical/literary movements, this isn't a bad thing or an egotistical thing as much as it is something that we have, as authors, centralized as a (legit) concern. My two cents.