Re: [New-Poetry] An Era of Détente for Creative-Wri ting Programs

[Chris Lott]

On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 10:38 AM, Mark Weiss<junction at earthlink.net> wrote:
> I for one resist talking on a list about any poems presented on a list, even
> if I love them, because then the absence of comment on other poems would be
> noted. Why would I want to risk hurting the feelings of anyone, especially
> people I like?

But isn't this list supposed to be about poetry? I'm not necessarily
even talking about poems written by listmembers, where I could
understand *part* of your caution-- better in that case (perhaps) to
say nothing rather than something negative.

But settings that aside, I don't see why it would be a problem to
share poems one loves (or likes) and what they love or like about
them, even if you felt it necessary not to do so with poems by people
on the list.

For that matter, I see this as a valuable activity even if the poems
aren't post-avant/etc.

> What venue did you have in mind for the exchange
> you're talking about?

There are many, but most obviously this list. And the poetry blogs.
And the myriad places where the post-avant crowd talks mostly about
everything but actual poems.

> Leave aside that I'm not sure
> which poetry you find opaque.

Leaving out the whole flarf thing because I'm tired of looking at
those poems and have yet to find many of them very funny... a lot of
Bruce Andrews and Clark Coolidge makes no sense to me at all.

Picking nearly at random, poems like:
http://www.avecbooks.org/tensex.html
and
http://fence.fenceportal.org/v12n1/clarke.php

baffle me. I figure there's something there, I just don't seem to have
a way to get at it.

c