A sketch of so-called Language Writing's development in the early 1970s.
I just got back from the National Poetry Foundation conference on the Poetry of the 1970s. Bruce Andrews, probably the most well-known figure there, both gave a poetry reading and presented the essay below on an academic panels.
Andrews represents the anti-capitalist agenda of contemporary avant-garde poetics. The 70s was the era of Language Poetry (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E), and many respected scholars (including Marjorie Perloff) think it is the most important movement in the second half of the 20th century. Arbiters of Language Poetry were strongly represented. Their message at the conference was clear: "We don't want to be 'historized' and periodized as a movement; the Language poetry project is still relevant today." In recent years there has been a tendency to look back and say the themes of the Language poets (non-linear sequencing, a-grammatical language use, emphasis on materiality, performance, situation, etc) are the themes by which the period will be known, i.e., the "style" of the recent decades. This is where Andrews is coming from in the following article, and he makes clear how explicitly and uncompromisingly political they consider their art to be.
I personally don't know how to respond to the ideas and assumptions of this approach. I cringe at the idea that grammar is political/ideological, a political war zone. On the hand, it is hard to deny the premise that the way we use language matters socially, cultural, and politically. So what is really going on here? Can capitalism and Humanism be "dismantled" by breaking down language? How does the "right" respond to this? (Not that I am Right or Left, but it is interesting to wonder how the Farris/PHC machine would strategize counterattack if they comprehended the implications of the total assault described below.)
Article available on ThoughtMesh: click here.
