[New-Poetry] a small catalog of cultural scripts for poets

[Gabriel Gudding]

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http://gabrielgudding.blogspot.com


Certain groups or cultures can become invested in bonding together in 
collective excitement in order to (1) structure time and (2) avoid 
intimate honesty -- by rehearsing what Eric Berne called "scripts."

The one Simon DeDeo recently described on a listserv -- "seeking status 
through the promise of a new yet unapproachable revitalization of 
poetry" -- is a cultural script for poetry, one played over and over 
through the centuries and with particular strength since about 1914 
(let's say just after Wyndham Lewis's BLAST). A script, in Eric Berne's 
terms, is a transactional game inscribed into a family's behavior 
patterns or into a culture's.

Another term for the game described above is "If it Weren't For Them."

The crying for the reformation of poetry is not really about the
reformation of poetry. It's about getting something (self or group 
aggrandizement) via crying. Thumping the hand at the woeful state of X 
helps create the perception that (a) something is wrong, and (b) we're 
the folks, or I'm the guy (usually a guy), to set this right. In other 
words, crying about the woeful state of X is a surreptitious boast. A 
boast to the effect that either "we/I see what others for years have 
not," or "we/I are the only ones, after years of others, who can fix this."

It's often an excuse to play at having an "Uproar." Sometimes, if
challenged, the game player will try to play "Courtroom." "What do you
mean by saying that I was behaving in X manner? That was not my
intention! Explain yourself, please: I'd really love to know! Maybe I
could learn something from you. But let's talk about my behavior, and 
whose perceptions about it are accurate, yours or mine, or his, etc -- 
and how you think I'm not being good. Yes, now about my behavior, which 
certainly was reasonable...."

Variants of "Courtroom" are "See What You've Done Now" (eg, you upset my 
kid) or "Want Out," in which people begin yelling they want out of a 
conversation but don't really leave.

Another variant is "Whiz Kids," which is like "Revolution," except less 
violent, harsh and destructive. "Whiz Kids" players in "Poetry" promote 
and advertise a new approach, a new style, a new method, as a means of 
solving a problem or resolving a dialectic (Flarf, eg). "Maverick" is a 
particularly male and heteronormative variant of "Whiz Kids," one played 
by an individual and an allied group; eg, Joel Oppenheimer (_Don't Touch 
the Poet_) or Charles Bernstein (_My Way_), Charles Bukowski, et al, and 
its self-destructive variant "Drunkard," played by Jack Kerouac, John 
Berryman, et al., in which it's made known that "the reason I'm drunk is 
I'm successful; my boorish transgressions will be forgiven if you have 
any taste."

A variant of this in younger members is "Young Turk," in which a 
combative young man is, often through the imprimatur of a "Maverick," 
encouraged to play the part of a new transgressor. Some encourage their 
own sons to adopt this painful role, which those sons willingly do if in 
doing so they can briefly draw their father's attention away from his 
own self-fascination.

Needless to say, social permission is needed for all these games. Such 
permission is typically handed out to X, Y, or Z depending upon their 
traits and credibility. "Drunkard," for instance, is often only allowed 
in well established successful members. If it's displayed too early (by 
non-credentialed members) it won't work. It can also be played by some 
who aren't very well know but who nevertheless adopt the role of 
drunkard/transgressor and use self-righteous anger to deepen the role in 
the hopes that drunkenness and transgression alone will be seen as a 
marker of current or future success.

- Gabriel