Guest Post: Kent Johnson on The New Chicago School of Poetry
[Ed. note: digital emunction is pleased to welcome Kent Johnson to the wild world of blogging. Herewith, his inaugural post.]
The New Chicago School
My proposal: That the closest thing we presently have to a “School” of younger, rigorously innovative poets in the U.S. (one that stands closest chance of being retrospectively seen as akin in significance to the NY School in its first-generation, proto-formation years–and when I say “School” I mean in that sense of fortuitous constellation, something very different from a self-identified tendency or “movement”) is what I’ll call the New Chicago School. It’s a list of accomplished, experimental writers, more poetically focused as a collective, perhaps, than the contents list of the City Visible anthology of a couple years back, and more geographically focused, too, inasmuch as all the poets have roots in the city, even though a few of them have recently moved elsewhere (though in most cases still nearby), and one now lives abroad:
William Fuller, Ed Roberson (these first two the elder figures of the group), Anthony Madrid, John Tipton, Devin Johnston, Peter O’Leary, Robyn Schiff, Bill Allegrezza, Dan Beachy-Quick, Michael Robbins, John Beer, Arielle Greenberg, Lisa Fishman, Jesse Seldess, Nick Twemlow, Suzanne Buffam, Srikanth Reddy, Jennifer Scappettone, Francesco Levato, Eric Elshtain, Jennifer Karmin, Leila Wilson, Nathalie Stephens, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Garin Cyncholl, Joel Felix, Chris Glomski, Erica Bernheim, Larry Sawyer, Patrick Durgin, Joshua Corey out in the suburbs, Tony Trigilio, Daniel Borzutzky (though something of a separate case, the work of these last two, perhaps)… and a gaggle of brilliant scholar-editors associated, past or present, with the Chicago Review, along with Robert Archambeau, on the outskirts of town at Lake Forest.
To these names one could add an active (and often activist) group of even younger poets and publishers: Michael Slosek, Kerri Sonnenberg, Steve Halle, Eric Unger, Luke Daly, Brooks Johnson, and Barrett Gordon, for example (the latter four have close connections, and their work engages the visual arts and music scenes, as well).
For sure, there are others I’m just blanking on, or don’t know, and apologies for that (please add). And obviously (!) there are all kinds of superb poets in Chicago doing important work who don’t quite fit the avant-aesthetic parameters of the grouping–Don Share being one prominent case, or David Trinidad, another.
From a poetic standpoint, what would justify the set? It is a diverse group (as was the original NY School) and a large one, but it’s held together by a vibrant, active scene and certain broad affinities of poetic predisposition and–quite often, and with the necessary exceptions–affect. The tilt is towards a “scholarly,” brainy, less “pop-cultural” and more self-consciously “critical” mode than tends to be the case around St. Mark’s, for example. And, I’d argue, the work by and large tends to be more thematically ambitious, more novel and challenging in its registers and forms, more earnestly in tune with the international than the work of the younger NY scene, still largely caught, the latter, within tonal frames of the hip, the pop, the vernacular, the anecdotal, the flarf.
I know that some of the poets above–Johnston, O’Leary, Tipton, and Fuller–have already been “aesthetically” grouped together by Stephen Burt (Bobby Baird has pointed out here that this group represents a rhetorical and formal drift locally known for some time already as “Flood Poetry”), in his recent essay “The New Thing,” where he also identifies recent theory coming out of the University of Chicago as key source for what he sees as a developing current of poetic epistemology. Burt is referring to “Thing Theory,” as promulgated by, among others, Douglas Mao and Bill Brown, the latter living in Hyde Park, apparently. In short, these younger poets are turning away from the still-fashionable modes of linguistic and conceptual abstraction and towards a rediscovery of “reference” and “concrete, real things,” tending to render their experience with terseness and concision. Though some of the poets he names, it should be noted, are not exactly laconic…
Now, I fully agree with Baird, in his post here some months back, reporting on aforesaid essay, that Burt is a terrific critic. I suppose Burt and Adam Kirsch are more or less neck and neck right now to be the next Helen Vendler, Burt the horse on the left, Kirsch the one on the right, striding to the pole, pulling their critical sulkies behind. (Though who, one wonders, will be the next Marjorie Perloff?) So there’s no question he’s very good. But I find his neo-Objectivist “Thing” grouping to be something of a stretch: Johnston, Mark Nowak, Juliana Spahr, Joseph Massey, and Jennifer Moxley, for example, placed in the same stable according to the poets’ (very different) renderings of their attentions to objects and their (usually wildly different) thematic application of these phenomenological encounters? Well, OK, I guess, though really, I wonder what U.S. poetry since Williams’s isn’t haunted at least a little by some manner of Husserlian susurration inside it. Come to think of it, forget Williams; even spooky Dickinson is chock-full of stuff and Things. So is Whitman, and in overdrive, though he’s not quite “concise,” so maybe he wouldn’t qualify as a “thing” poet. In any case, what’s all that “new” about the New Thing, if such a thing actually exists, is not all that clear.
As you can see, I feel Burt’s argument is a bit forced and constraining, a bit too much of a bit and halter, as it were. (Incidentally, interesting to me, and as I wrote Burt after I first saw his essay, I’m pretty sure the first-ever serious application of Thing Theory to post-avant poetry, including quotations from Mao and Brown, et. al, was in Eric Hayot’s 2005 PMLA essay, “Araki Yasusada: Author, Object.”) In any case, both Baird and John Latta have pretty neatly taken Burt apart on all this.
And maybe my grumpiness with Burt’s bridling classification isn’t all that necessary, anyway. Superior poets will almost never try to conform to this or that critic’s taxonomic criteria, and I’m sure someone like Burt would be the last to want them to. The point I’m trying to make, though perhaps I don’t even have to, is that you don’t need–as again, the New York poets proved, or the Black Mountain poets proved, or the Beats proved, or even the Objectivists proved–any kind of solid critical-philosophical frame to constitute a vigorous “school,” or even tendency, of poetry. You don’t even need a quasi one. All you need is a locale(s), smart ambitious people, and a certain affective habitus (often found in taverns) that is friendly, contentious, gossipy, mutually supportive, and professionally incestuous to some degree. The modal, organizing affinities, which rarely funnel down to strong affinities of “program,” grow out of these. If something is right, and who knows what that is or how it works, things flower.
So I’m making the case that there is something that has developed in Chicago over the past few years, an accretion of poetic felicities whose parts and sum are unrivaled by any other avant locale in the country: St. Mark’s has a wealth of talent and enough in-house sound for a School, but the textual ambition seems comparatively slight; Austin has Slow Poetry, and this is full of promise, but it’s more an embryonic movement, not a School; the Bay Area has a great scene, but the crazy variegation of it all (see Bay Area Poetics) makes any notion of School untenable; Philadelphia is loaded with smarts, but true Schools of poetry cannot abide venerable Headmasters (well, OK, excepting the Sons of Ben, during the reign of Charles I); Iowa City has the most expert practitioners of the period tachisme, but that is not any kind of School, it is a career; Providence has riches, but it takes more than students; Buffalo is home to some fine outlier poets, but SUNY is covered in snow; Boston, apparently, has fallen into the sea.
In conclusion, what I’m proposing (it would appear I am beginning to repeat myself) is something that’s beginning to have a sense of the self-evident to it already, I think, and no doubt others have noticed it, too: that Chicago, right now, is home to the most interesting and vital avant “poetic cluster” in the country.
And I feel confident enough of the claim to name it again, even though I know the name is not all that flashy, but that’s appropriate to the city’s spirit, too: The New Chicago School.
–Kent Johnson
[One hundred miles from Wrigley Field, in Freeport, Illinois]
I didn’t realize that Jenny Boully is now in Chicago.
Kent
Dear Kent
Thanks for mentioning our anthology.
Ray Bianchi
Cracked Slab Books
http://www.irasciblepoet.blogspot.com
Kent,
There is nothing you’ve said in your “proposal” that I haven’t already said, and better. Whether or not you and Bob want to credit me with Respectable Authority, I said these things first, and I said them best. Whether I said them from Philly or not makes no difference, nor does my age (I apologize for being twenty years younger than you and also brighter). There are many glaring omissions from your list, and it seems to me that all you want to do is start a cool new club to lead. Do you want to be a poet, or a pompous old blowhard? The best thing about Chicago (up until this point) is how egalitarian it has been. It is only a petty personal rivalry that keeps you from mentioning Gabe Gudding, for instance. I am happy to play “Outsider,” but it is a bit much to see my own words (which Bob acknowledged) parroted by someone else as if they were new. Whether this is conscious or unconscious, parroting is parroting and I am not going to let it go by silently. It is not fair to the work I’ve done to get Chicago noticed in every possible way. Once Chicago gets Exclusive, the magic will end and you might as well be in Dallas, or Albany, or Utah. If you want to steal (almost verbatim) another man’s words, go right ahead. But keep in mind that someday, someone’s going to be only too happy to drive their cart and plough over your dead bones.
Love,
Adam Fieled
Adam,
Can you show me, via comparison, where I have “parroted” you? I honestly have never read anything you’ve written about Chicago poetry. I think I’ve only ever looked twice or thrice at your blog, and briefly, and this was in relation to something you’d written on the “post-avant” and Flarf, not the Chicago scene. So I really couldn’t have stolen anything from you, even if I’d been so inclined!
That’s not to say that you aren’t smarter than I am, as you claim, because it’s likely that you are. And hey, if my comments and views are similar to yours, then maybe it means we are on to something!
As for Gabe Gudding, I don’t really know what you mean. Gabe is a friend of mine, but I didn’t include him in my list for the obvious reason that he lives in Normal, Illinois, three hours, I believe, from Chicago. To my knowledge, Gabe has never lived in the city. Roberto Harrison, also a friend and a fine poet, is not included on my (admittedly partial) list, either, and he lives even closer to Chicago, in Milwaukee. I tried to present my “criteria” in the first paragraph.
love back to you!
Kent
Hey, Adam, congratulations on being younger than Kent. That’s quite an accomplishment! You must have worked really hard to be born later than another person, so I can understand your pride. We all know younger people are smarter and better than their elders, even relatively young elders like Kent. People over forty are so dumb! Hey, you’re going to be over forty some day, if you’re lucky, so better make inane allusions to Blake while you can, pal.
A tip: people might take your ridiculous allegations with a bit more generosity if you hadn’t barged in here telling everyone how great you are. People who can actually write don’t need to compose their own blurbs. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing there’s a reason no one’s ever heard of you.
Philip Jenks & Gabriel Gudding are the two best poets in Chicago. Neither were mentioned here.
Mimi,
Add Philip Jenks to the list if he resides in Chicago or lived there until recently. I hope that’s the case, and it would have been a big omission on my part to not include him, if so. I admire his work.
If Gabe Gudding is settled now in Chicago, I wasn’t aware of it. Add him to the list also, if so!
Kent
Dear Adam,
Like Anon, I have no idea who you are, and given what you’ve written, I have no inclination to find out. (Monomaniacs aren’t really my bag.) But plagiarism is a pretty serious charge, and I think your least responsibility at this point is tell us what you think Kent stole “(almost verbatim).” I figure you can’t possibly mean the phrase “Chicago School,” though the irony would be pretty terrific. Maybe you hold the patent on Chicago pride? (Does the 2016 Committee know?) Kent’s response to you was far more generous than you deserved; I sure hope you’ll repay it with some explanation.
Bobby
Hi Kent,
I really like the post, but I wish you had spent more time showing some affinity between a list of diverse poets simply joined by geographical area. Most of the muscle here is used on proving what’s wrong with Burt’s formulation of The New Thing. And while I also have problems with that formulation (maybe all formulations of this nature for that matter? do we need such assertions of authority?), I think Burt has done some of his homework in a specific way with specific poems and what joins them. Finally, is geography the barrier it once was? Perhaps the Internet allows for schools/clubs/knitting circles etc. whose member range far and wide, allowing them to find affinities without having to actually rub elbows.
Again, thanks for your take.
Brennen
I want to stay out of this thread, since it would seem self-serving to get involved, except to say that Anthony Madrid’s chapbook The 580 Strophes, published by Cosa Nostra editions, will soon be available at the Seminary Coop Bookstore in sunny Hyde Park on the south side of Chicago. It’s a wonderful object with some of the smartest, most exciting poems I’ve read in a moon or two. For some reason, Madrid’s name’s not on the cover, so you have to hunt a bit, but it’s worth it.
Here’s the official page, with more info: http://www.cosanostra-editions.com/madrid.html. You can buy a copy there too.
Hi Brennen,
This is a great comment, thanks. Let me recap some points.
I agree that Burt does his homework, and I very much admire his intelligence. I don’t really object to his grouping of a few of the Chicagoans under his “New Thing” designation (again, as Baird has pointed out, people on the scene in the city had for some time before Burt’s essay given the term “Flood poetry” to a certain “poetic cast” associated with that press). I do think Burt’s trope breaks down when he moves–and far–beyond that, attempting to place very disparate, disconnected (Mark Nowak *and* Rae Armantrout?) compositional attitudes and practices under large critical flag. His New Thing category bears problems similar to his previous Elliptical one– it’s something akin to those MoMA banners announcing the latest generational thing: a curatorial tag flocking these or those gestural half-resemblances to draw large and sometimes-strained familial conclusions. It’s a manner of going at things from the top down, I think, and often enough the effect, regardless of intent, is that principles of heuristic utility take a backseat to interests of critical position-taking.
As I see it, then (and to respond directly to your question), it’s in the context of the “geographical” that critical mapping can become most coherent. In that sense, my general point vis a vis Steve B., which is not necessarily all that novel or exciting, is that it’s really more interesting and practical (and in regards to past literary history more relevant) to consider the matter of “group” formation from the standpoint of “sociological habitus,” if you’ll forgive that term–from the ground, that is, of a shared community that is sited in physical vicinity and informed by the vicissitudes of active, personal exchange. Such interactive community functions, and we have plenty of examples of it, as a kind of social base out of which broad but real poetic affinities can arise. Not that it’s some kind of linear relationship: Poetics and sociality are always informing each other in dialectically ricocheting ways, obviously. But yes, I’m interested in those incipient commonalities (and dissents!) that seem to be forming inside this “avant” social space in Chicago. It’s something in process, clearly, and the differences and particularities that develop will be as interesting as the similarities. No specific guiding “philosophical” qualities need to be imposed.
All of which, I’m suddenly seeing, probably echoes some of Dale Smith’s “Slow Poetry” proposals. And none of which necessarily has any cause-effect relation with textual value, I should say: Again, the avant matrix in NYC around the Poetry Project is even more firmly established and–in and across its various sub-clusters–more tightly knit. But as I said in my post, this doesn’t seem to have led yet to much work of real weight by its younger members over the past few years (for many in NY, of course, the aesthetic point is to *not* produce it, so no need for folks there to get grumpy over my comparison).
And you are right about the internet enabling connections that couldn’t exist otherwise, certainly can’t argue with you there. What’s worth exploring, I think, is how physical community and its dynamics may still be at the heart of those “Things” that end up lasting and mattering.
Thanks for the good comment. And I’ll second, too, Michael Robbins’s enthusiasms for Anthony Madrid’s The 580 Strophes, which I got in the mail last week–an absolutely gobsmacking flash from the blue.
Kent
Of curious interest, Harper’s online has featured, with excerpt and link, my post today.
http://www.harpers.org/
The Internet!
Kent
For Adam the Unnamed Namer
What rhymes too easily with idiotic?
Chicago poets labeled Eliotic.
In a scene exuding such narcissism
These swollen statements pass for criticism,
And when orientation’s so Omphalic
All epithets tend toward hyperbolic.
But is this how it also is in Philly?
Whereas we’d thought there they were not so silly.
Kent,
Thanks for your thoughtful response to my questions. I understand your take much more clearly now, especially in regard to a shared geographically based community, which seems a much better jumping off point for grouping than flying a critical flag and seeing who might salute it.
In all truth, I’m largely naive when it comes to the goings-on in Chicago (and perhaps, even with shame here, what’s going on in my own city). So I suspect then my response to your post was at least partly spurred by my own way of harvesting poetry and ideas about it: through the ghosts in this machine, and maybe a bit of community I see forming out of it for me. I do hold a little hope that the Internet can/should even the playing field for those at what I can only call a “geographical disadvantage” — for, say, some ambitious young hotshit poet stuck in the wilds of West Virginia who needs community, which he or she finds through blogging, etc. Sometimes, it seems, a position of privilege can simply be geographical.
Thanks again,
Brennen
The wilds of West Virginia are extraordinarily beautiful. Note also that they are not far from Martins Ferry, Ohio.
Brennen,
I well know how you feel about being in the “wilds.” I’ve been in them myself, here in Freeport, IL, for twenty years. So there’s a lot of the vicarious in what I write above!
hang in there,
Kent
Oh, dear, Kent. I hope I didn’t misrepresent myself. I’m not young, hotshit, or in the wilds of West Virginia (though I did grow up on the fringes of such wilds). I’m in fact pretty old, lukewarm, and living in New York City.
Brennen
Ha! I see now.
And here I thought I’d found a brother hillbilly…
sorry.
Kent
Adam Fieled continues to make charges against me at his blog. I posted this at his site today and wanted to share it here:
Adam,
No. If you can demonstrate how I have “plagiarized” you, it won’t in any way be “forcing” my “nose into the dirt.”
You have accused me of stealing from your writing, and you continue to do so here. This is quite a charge to make. I am personally asking you to show, via quoted textual comparison, where the plagiarism resides. You really should do this, lest it seem obvious to everyone that you can’t defend the claim.
As I said in my first response to you at DE, I have NEVER read anything you have written on Chicago poetry. I am requesting that you go back to what you have written and present those passages that you feel would show that I am lying in saying that.
If you can’t do that, I would ask you to publicly retract the serious accusation you are making. It is nothing short of slander.
Kent
Kent, you cannot reason with someone who thinks this is a tolerable statement:
I was going to say that this is Glenn Beck thinking, full of insinuation and evasion. (Anybody remember this, from Fieled’s first comment: “If you want to steal (almost verbatim) another man’s words, go right ahead.”) But it goes back further than that. This is intellectual McCarthyism, pure and simple: prove to me you’re not a Communist or else you’re guilty!
I’m having trouble navigating Adam’s rabid criticism of Kent’s ideas and the fact that he is claiming those very ideas are his own. How exactly does Adam’s formulation of a Chicago School avoid the pitfall of exclusivity — or “clannish and corporate” (I’m also lost on “corporate”) as Adam has put it — that he claims Kent is proposing in his post?
Brennen
Adam Fieled has written interesting things about Chicago poetry. I think he’s a talented and bright guy and a good poet. He’s also spent a long time appreciating what’s been going on in Chicago and trying to get it noticed and trying to get an analytic handle on things. That said, I really do believe that Kent (whose work I admire) and Adam have come to their similar conclusions separately and honestly — like Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, who came to the theory of evolution independently. Darwin, of course, got all the press, and I can imagine Wallace not being particularly happy about it. Anyway: the interesting thing is the poetry — and thanks to both Adam and Kent for shedding light on it.
Bob
Well, I tried to point out to dude that “verbatim” just does refer to the exact copying of words. That’s what it means. Does dude own a copy of the OED? He can’t get out of this by now claiming, as he did once again in response to my criticism, that all he meant was that Kent copied his ideas “verbatim,” since that statement is nonsensical. It is a meaningless statement. It commits a category mistake. It’s as if he had said, “Kent stole my ideas in the exact color in which I first had them.”
The notion that because someone had the idea of calling a poetry scene in Chicago the Chicago School, another person who had the same idea must have stolen it is too pathetic to merit comment. I mean, what are the odds?! Newton v. Leibniz it ain’t.
There’s nothing harder on the internet, I guess, than basic decency: if you acted foolish, say so, apologize, & move on.
No, but the above isn’t strong enough: you accused another writer of plagiarism. Then when challenged you allowed as how it was too much bother to dredge up from your “archives” the plagiarized material, plus you didn’t mean to imply by saying that the writer stole your words & reproduced them exactly, word for word, that he actually stole your words & reproduced them exactly, word for word. But, really, there’s no need to apologize or retract your statement, because, hey, it’s clear to any psychic that the writer knew perfectly well that you’d had a somewhat similar idea at some point, though no, you don’t happen to be able to provide a source just now.
Exactly, MR. But it’s not just a question of odds. It’s the fact that in using the phrase “Chicago School,” Fieled was, on his terms, stealing words from others’ mouths. Not to mention the fact that people describe everything from Chicago–economics, anthropology, dentistry–as a Chicago School.
But who needs decency when poetry’s at stake?
I appreciate these comments. FYI, here is a follow-up I posted at Adam’s blog just now, hoping that it might help calm the waters:
***
Bob Archambeau wrote:
>I hope that, in the end, the real issue won’t be the one that divides you and Kent, but the one that unities you: support for the work being done by the poets.
I’m glad you said this, Bob. My feelings exactly. What do you say, Adam?
Bob, you also mention the danger of “exclusivity” in discussing the list of poets I offered in my post. I understand what you’re getting at and certainly agree with the sentiment in principle. However, I do want to point out that in the original post I am careful to say this, right after the list of names:
>For sure, there are others I’m just blanking on, or don’t know, and apologies for that (please add). And obviously (!) there are all kinds of superb poets in Chicago doing important work who don’t quite fit the avant-aesthetic parameters of the grouping–Don Share being one prominent case, or David Trinidad, another.
I’m in no way pretending I’m as intimate with the situation as poets in Chicago are (I made a point of signing off “100 miles from Wrigley Field”!). I’m simply speaking as someone who’s read a smattering of times in Chicago, has published in a few of the journals, knows some of the poets mentioned, has read quite a bit of the work, has a bit of indirect knowledge about the scene, and feels some real enthusiasms for what seems to be in motion. I was just trying to get some names down to suggest the breadth and depth of the talent in the city. No exclusivity was intended, and I’ve learned in past few days that I missed some obvious names that should be added to the line-up.
Now, Adam: I hope the charges you’ve made will be put aside. I think others today at Digital Emunction have demonstrated convincingly how silly they really are. I do need to say, however, in response to your last comment, that I am completely at a loss regarding your claims that I have been “petty” in the discussion. How so? Let me remind you that after you first commented at DE, offering all kinds of insults about my age, intelligence, actions, motivations, and so on, I responded in a perfectly polite way, even granting that you were no doubt right about being smarter than I. It was only after you continued the accusations here that I responded yesterday again and then today. And I can’t see how responding (and with measured objectivity) to charges that impugn my character and ethics can in any way be seen as “petty.”
What I’d like to propose is that we follow the suggestion Bob offers above. I plan to check out your writings on Chicago poetry, and I’ve no doubt that you have written with intelligence and passion about the matter. I hope you will continue that. Because there is more than plenty to write about!
OK?
Kent
I’m coming to this discussion a little late, but just wanted to add in light of Adam’s comments that if David Geffen is following along, I am perfectly willing to be the Kurt Cobain of the Chicago School, and screw all the rest of you.
Much love,
JB
I do think Adam is correct when he suggests that Kent, by naming names (and in such a high profile way) has inadvertently set-up a hierarchy of poets which will be ultimately damaging to the egalitarian sprit that Adam sees as up to now being the norm in Chicago poetry. This is what Adam may mean when he uses the word “corporate” in relation to Kent’s league table of poets.
Once a list like this is committed to paper (or the Internet), and been acquiesced to by those who may have some influence in furthering the legitimacy of such a list, then one does indeed have the beginnings of a corporate takeover of what formally may have been a loose fraternity of cooperating creative talents. So I can well understand Adam’s concerns.
Dear Jeffrey,
I’m really trying not to be combative here, but don’t you think it’s a little disingenuous at this point to pretend that “Adam’s concerns” have merely to do with the nefarious effects of list-making? I can’t see why, given that he still has neither substantiated nor retracted his charge of plagiarism, anyone should take seriously anything else he wrote in his comment.
But okay, let’s take it seriously for a moment, to the extent possible, anyway. To say that there were no hierarchies in the Chicago scene prior to Kent’s (open-ended) list is laughable. It’s that old Romantic utopian projection, grass-is-greener edition. The special province of the outsider looking in, who says “Over there, they’ve got it good, but here everyone here is mired in muck.” Do you (and he) really think that ambition, competition, and hegemonies don’t exist in Chicago? They do, as they exist everywhere else. I’m sure Flood wants to be a better press than Featherproof, just as when I was at Chicago Review we damned sure wanted to be a better poetry magazine than Poetry. And I know, from many personal experiences, that the same tensions replicated themselves on the individual level as well.
I’d agree with Kent and with Adam that Chicago is a great place for poetry right now, and I’d even agree with Adam that some of that can be ascribed to some kind of vaguely-defined “spirit” that is different from what one feels in other cities. But that spirit, however we characterize it, doesn’t exist in the absence of sociological frictions. It exists with, against, over, and under them. To pretend otherwise is just fantasy.
Robert,
No doubt you are right, a certain amount of competitiveness does exist in the Chicago scene, and I think that’s healthy and natural. But I think Adam’s concern is that Kent’s list (however provisional) may become something of a “papal edict” in the absence of any dissenting voices. Lists of this sort do tend to take on a life of their own, especially if given sufficient publicity.
Both of us are aware of the arbitrary nature that most poetic reputations are built on. One way this happens is for a critic of a sufficiently high profile to approve a particular work, poet or school, and for that approval to become widely accepted over time.
I think Adam sees this, and is concerned about it.
Oh heavens. Kent Johnson as the pope. If anything, Kent’s authorship makes the proposal that much less likely to gain acceptance (I think he recognizes this).
What I don’t get is the objection to a “list of names.” I think I’ll propose a new Milwaukee School of Poetry, except I won’t name any of the poets I think might belong to this school. That’ll make interesting reading! Or else, I’ll draw up a list that excludes no one & never stops.
(Not that I’m endorsing the idea of the school. But one should note Bourdieu’s proposition that the literary system, in his editor Randal Johnson’s words, “is not harmonious, but rather is driven by conflict in which one aesthetic construction negates opposing constructions.” Not only is this certainly the case in Chicago as in every other place, but it is totally inevitable, not worth celebrating or decrying. It is how poetry works. To call for an “egalitarian spirit” is to completely misunderstand how the field works.)
Michael,
I agree with you. I personally would have nothing to do with any school/s of poetry for the reasons you mention, but I think Adam is less cynical than me, and has written extensively about the Chicago scene with some passion. Given this, it’s understandable that he feels concerned about what he sees is a premature crystallising of a list of “major players”, when in reality, as Dylan sang, ‘The wheel’s still in spin”.
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”
- Lewis Carroll
I know exactly zilch about the Chicago poetry scene, so I should probably keep my mouth shut, especially since, like Bobby, I have no desire to be combative. But, in view of the comments above, I want to add first that the idea that Kent “by naming names” is promoting a “corporate” takeover of the Chicago scene not only misconstrues the purpose of a corporation—which by definition is an abstraction or fiction that is legally distinguished from natural persons—but also and more importantly misconstrues what Adam said in his first comment. There Adam excoriates Kent not for naming names but for not naming enough names: “There are many glaring omissions from your list, and it seems to me that all you want to do is start a cool new club to lead. Do you want to be a poet, or a pompous old blowhard?…”
And, second, it is pretty hard to take seriously Adam’s “concerns” about the damaging effects of Kent’s article when it is impossible to figure out—even at the most minimal level—what Adam is talking about in his accusation of plagiarism. (I tried to google his “archives.” I read a lot of stuff about Chicago, but I found nothing that in any way substantiated Adam’s claim.) I’m not even sure Adam has figured out what he is talking about, since he tells Kent at one point on his blog that “you have not DIRECTLY plagiaruzed me, nor did I say you have. I feel that I can prove that in any court. Copping of IDEAS is something else,” and since he says to Michael Robbins when MR corrects his use of “verbatim,” “The IDEAS were verbatim: the exact words were not.” I struggle to make any sense of such statements, but I do suspect, sort of, that Adam thinks his ideas are exactly the same as Kent’s even though the words are different, an instance of plagiarism following from, say, unattributed paraphrase, or perhaps in this case, uh, verbatim paraphrase. It is obviously impossible to verify such accusations by locating which of Kent’s words came from Adam, so doesn’t it seem reasonable to expect Adam either to demonstrate which of Kent’s ideas are identical with Adam’s or else to retract the accusation? Kent has been quite generous so far, which is far more than can be said for his accuser.
Finally, (again) I don’t know enough either to agree or disagree with Kent’s analysis (even though I feel the urge to disagree with some of it), but I do want to say (in reference to Kent’s comment that “Boston, apparently, has fallen into the sea”) that sometimes strange things wash up from the deep.
“(in reference to Kent’s comment that “Boston, apparently, has fallen into the sea”) that sometimes strange things wash up from the deep.”
Like Deborah Digges and Franz Wright, maybe?
Frankly, I’ve never even heard of most of these Chicago people. Must be a reason they call it the ’second city’.
All love for Deborah, indeed. May she rest in peace.
Thanks, Boyd. She was great, wasn’t she?
Kent, you give me another reason I wish I still lived in Chicago, where I grew up. And that I were writing.
I once heard someone (in Chicago) say, “They were wearing the same dress verbatim.”
Fitzgerald’s “2nd city” crack is the kind of thing someone’d get slugged for if said too loud in front of a Chicago poet I know, named Fitzpatrick.
Lucas
I’ve never heard of Gary B. Fitzgerald, either, but I don’t assume this means he’s not an interesting poet, witty banterer over cocktail wieners, or excellent middleweight boxer.
On the other hand, you’ll never convince me there’s a city called “Boston.” That’s just a story they make up to scare kids in Providence.
Cheers,
Bob
Lucas,
I’m sure Fitzpatrick isn’t losing any sleep over the question, but was it really Fitzgerald who coined the phrase? I always thought it was Liebling. (Who, coincidentally, spent a paragraph of his eloquent put-down describing “some kind of literary revolution going on” in the city: “All the prose coming out of the place is highly carbonated,” AJL says. And to think, just the other day a friend told me that he thought a “lack of pop” was one of the distinguishing features of the New Chicago School.)
Lucas isn’t implying Fitzgerald coined the phrase “second city”!
Oh, did you think he meant Scott Fitzgerald? He was referring to the guy who left comments in his thread named Fitzgerald.
@MR: Got it, thanks. That was in fact what I thought. Man, can I be dumb.
Boston has… the Frog Pond.
Chicago has… wind.
Boyd, when you say, “Adam excoriates Kent not for naming names but for not naming enough names” you are correct. But mentioning names at all does allows for the possibility that some will be left out, so in a sense, just naming names is problematical.
I can’t comment on Adam’s charges of plagiarism against Kent, as I have not read everything Adam’s written on the subject of Chicago poetry. Like everyone who has posted here, I think Adam should be specific about what he thinks Kent has plagiarised, and I suggested this in a comment on his blog.
Maybe he thinks that to attempt such a thing would be difficult given the fact that it’s hard to prove if an idea has been stolen unless that idea has been crystallised into a compact written formula, and given that his writings on Chicago poetry are fairly voluminous, perhaps he sees it as too difficult to condense. And that his case is best proven by the existence of his body of writings on the matter, when compared to Kent’s brief article.
Uh, sorry, but if you accuse someone of plagiarism, the onus is on you to produce evidence, no matter how “voluminous” yr “archives” (who does he think he is, Trollope?). This is special pleading, & it’s sadly ridiculous. If he finds it “too difficult to condense” he shouldn’t have said anything. And, come on. Too difficult to condense. What are we talking about here, the Watergate hearings?
Oh good grief. Are we back to this ridiculous topic again? Look, I didn’t plagiarize from Adam Fieled, I plagiarized from Ron Silliman. Ron had written on Chicago about two years ago, or something, and I took the whole idea from him, including all the names and the idea about Boston having fallen into the sea and stuff. Except I cut out all the names I’d never heard of because I wanted to be exclusionary and hurt the feelings of those who were unknown to me, screw ‘em, I’m sick of poets I don’t know, and they deserve to feel bad for not making themselves known to me. It’s Ron Silliman’s idea, OK? I stole it from HIM. Is everyone satisfied now? I’m a mature poet, and I admit what I did.
Silliman stole it from me. I stole it from L. Ron Hubbard.
Adam, has given me a statement to post here:
“I have not intervened on that site because the charges haven’t seemed worth responding to. It seemed to me like a bunch of cheap shots. Of course, all these questions have more or less been answered in my own comments on Stoning the Devil.
I’m not up for an ongoing war, unless it is taken to a higher level: to whether or not Chicago really wants a New School, and whether or not this school would cut Chicago into factions. That seems to me to be the meat of the matter. And you can quote me on it.
And you may possibly want to refer people on the site to [URL redacted to preserve my equanimity --rpb]. I have some new poems up, which could give them a better idea of who I am.”
“I have not intervened on that site because the charges haven’t seemed worth responding to. It seemed to me like a bunch of cheap shots.”
Ah, that explains it: cheap shots.
And I can’t help but note that this is the first time I’ve ever seen a blog comment delivered by courier.
The internet surprises me every day.
To One Who Knows Us Not
And is our dignity now imperiled
By the hard, cold eye of one Fitzgerald,
Who divests himself of anything witty,
To underwrite clichés like “second city”?
Let his ignorance of us be a sign:
None but the radiant enter our shrine.
“Of course, all these questions have more or less been answered in my own comments on Stoning the Devil.” Uh-huh. Like what exactly Kent plagiarized. How exactly you can steal an idea “verbatim.” And, yes, what the hell is up with asking someone to post a comment for you? You don’t want to sully your browser with the site’s URL?
It’s time to leave this person to the dustbin. But let me note first the high tone he assumes: now, come on, what really matters is the poetry. But when he came in here, he tripped over this elegant prose: “There is nothing you’ve said in your ‘proposal’ that I haven’t already said, and better. Whether or not you and Bob want to credit me with Respectable Authority, I said these things first, and I said them best. Whether I said them from Philly or not makes no difference, nor does my age (I apologize for being twenty years younger than you and also brighter).”
Ah, youth.
Michael, Adam only suggested I quote him. It was my decision to do so. He wants to now draw a line under the matter.
Steve Burt, writes on his blog, Close Calls with Nonsense:
>Robert Archambeau, responding to Kent Johnson at length, responds to me in passing (as Robert Baird responded to me earlier): Archambeau and Johnson (not to be confused with Devin Johnston) are defending, indeed advocating, a Chicagoland poetry scene, claiming– with some plausibility– that it’s the most promising set of youngish poets operating in American English right now. I’d like to see the same (again, plausible) claims taken up by somebody who lives somewhere else.<
Steve, I DO live somewhere else. I’m close to three hours from Chicago.
Kent
Another stereotypical call and response indicative of how we seem to want to do any and everything we can to detract from the art being discussed. It happens at every blog/forum on the planet regardless of whether the culprits are PhD’s or high school kids. I’ve read and appreciated most of the poets named here and didn’t have to be told that there was something great going on in Chicago. Yet, I applaud those willing to take the time in print or otherwise to articulate what I, myself, perceive as a significant movement.
The fact that well deserved recognition is coming from various areas/arenas should be enough. Who said what first is fodder for the playground and does nothing but diminish and serve as a distraction in regard to said recognition. I’m sure we can never “just be friends,” but we can sure as hell grow up.
Just an aside on the “new thingness” thing : see Edwin Honig’s intro to the Oscar Williams Major American Poets anthology (ca. 1960 or so). The theme of Honig’s overview of the spirit of American poetry (since Pilgrim days) is its taste for, delight in, keen observation of, etc. - “things”. The new thing is the old thing.
No one complains at and about Kent Johnson more than I do (though not always out loud), but I have to say, in this case, he’s right, and Adam, as usual, is an imbecile. (See, Adam, *that* there is what a cheap shot looks like. But you know that. You’re good at those.)
This whole comment stream has made me very happy. Sweet, sweet Schadenfreude.
I respect Carter’s admonition, even as I’m chastened by it, and since everyone has gotten to say their piece, and then some, about the whole ridiculous Fieled business, consider this fair warning that I’m going to remove or redact any further comments that deal with that particular subject. (Though I reserve the right to make exceptions.)
Discussion on any of the many other issues raised by Kent’s post continues to be welcome. (And don’t forget to check out his interview with John Bradley on satire–it’s good!)
Cf. Erica Kaufman, Marcella Durand, Macgregor Card, Tracy Grinnell, Miles Champion, Tisa Bryant, and a plentiful number of other poets who are both critically and socially engaged, not merely holding a torch for a steadfast lit history, often publishing (though good point that some are not, working separately; please consider what’s visible [are we France and wherever flarf started is Switzerland?]), and working hard within the organization of the Poetry Project to yes, be both an international site and an inclusive one (from Kootenay to Bay Area to Sweden to Slovenia to Mexico, to, hurrah, Chicago).
My two-cent defense of the NY/St. Mark’s surround. Sorry to arrive late too, but someone did have to be grumpy — pop-culture references? what’s visible v. what’s actually being done, sigh.
-Corina
(speaking for myself and not the org)
Kent:
I think that one thing that has to be said about Chicago is economics. The reason that New York and San Francisco are tough places to be a poet is the fact that it is very expensive to live in those places.
Having said that Chicago is woefully lacking in literary institutions. Flood Editions for example is a Chicago press but they do not really publish many poets from here and are engaged as a press around the country.
We do not have an MFA here on the level of say Iowa or Brown or a literary center like Kelly Writers House in Philly or the Loft in Minneapolis. As a publisher I can tell you that there is NO money for poetry in Chicago and this is a real problem.
The Poetry Foundation is located here but like the American Medical Association which is also based here it can hardly be called a Chicago institution. In the end there are allot of good poets here but there are also in dialogue with the greater poetic region which you are included as is Gabe Gudding and Roberto Harrison as well I think.
Kent you are gem and an asset to us– I owe you beer the next time you want to come down to Chicago
Regards
Ray Bianchi
kent,
except for a few laurel-professionals, boston is a lot of the desert in the sea.
which isn’t to say that not a few sea-mice have been taken from us for studying (i’m thinking don share, and cetera).
i guess i don’t have to mention that there are wires stretching bay-to-bay–geography hasn’t kept me from chris daniels, or him from me (in a special case where you yourself were the wire, and neither of us was really ourselves (that is, you put the lost lusophones back in contact with their comrades, as much as putting chris w/me)).
we contain schools, which i guess is not quite the same thing as containing multitudes.
The big question is, what’re they going to call themselves? Remember, “New York School” was a sort of elegant misnomer. That poetry phenomenon was pretty far from anything like a “school” in the usual sense of the term.
So if you call yourselves the “Chicago School”, or even the “New Chicago School”, you are really echoing that rather inimitable, original NY p.r. moniker. & in doing so, you will remain, alas, as always, the “Second City”.
Actually, “New York School” was a joke. The term had already been applied, & still refers, to the abstract expressionists whom the poets admired.
The words “new school” have time and time again been the famous last words of many a poetry movement. Labels like this are not for you to tag upon yourself but for outsiders, perhaps even decades from now, to declare. Once you start believing your own BS, that is, that you’ve invented something new or that your group of poets is more important that all the other groups of poets in Chicago, you begin a slippery slope in which your movement becomes one of competition rather than simply for the love of poetry, and when the competition becomes fierce, hostility takes over, and when the next generation moves on in and declares themselves the “new school” and the great bubble is burst, infighting and backstabbing takes over. Look, you are already arguing about who came up with the idea first. Do yourselves a great big favor and just enjoy poetry and don’t try to make it anything other than it is. If it is meant to be recognized as some great poetic movement, that will happen naturally and will be invoked by all the non-poets who buy your books. I have been involved in Chicago’s poetry scene for twenty years and I have seen this happen over and over. As soon as you decide for yourself that you are that important, it is the beginning of the end.
Thanks for the historical clarification, Michael. So “New Chicago School”, if applied, would be a nod to a previous joke. In the Land of Nod.
I guess CJ Laity didn’t read the article, since he seems unaware that Kent is writing as an “outsider,” who is decidedly not including himself in the “school.”
Also: doesn’t any poet in Chicago have a fucking sense of humor?
Bob Archambeau now has a comments function at his blog. He blogs today about a Facebook conversation he’d been having with Seth Abramson on the topic of my post. Seth then writes in three or four comments at Bob’s blog today.
I honestly have no idea what Seth Abramson is so upset about. But it’s great that Bob Archambeau has a commetns function! http://www.samizdatblog.blogspot.com/
Kent
I read the article. You can stop arguing because the bottom line is neither of you said it first. About every six years a group of poets in Chicago pops up and declares themselves the “new Chicago school”. It doesn’t matter if this is done through an “outsider” or an “insider”. It’s the same game. I have to admit the “school” you are talking about is very impressive. The amount of poetry reading series and presses and the amount of talent does stand shoulder to should with any movement I’ve seen in Chicago over the last 25 years. But this entire idea of calling yourselves a new school or an (insert a term) movement has been done before over and over and over. It’s like a high. You get together at the readings, you publish some great stuff, you hold conferences and put yourselves in panels and make decisions amongst yourselves and it all seems quite real until sooner or later the inevitable happens: you label it. But it’s not as real as you think. I’ll tell you when it’s real. When 100,000 non-poets go to the big chain bookstore and buy your book, when Joe Schmoe down at the loading dock recognizes your name: that’s when it’s real. And since if this rare occurance ever happens it will almost certainly happen after you are dead, then why waste time deluding yourselves into thinking you’ve invented something or that what you are doing is even the slightest bit different than what a hundred groups of poets in Chicago have done before you. Keep it fun. Don’t take it seriously. DO NOT NAME IT UNLESS YOU WANT TO KILL IT. And of course, keep a sense of humor.
some issues– Adam Fieled is a good poet but I know of at least 10 poets that he has attacked or insulted so I guess that is is modus…. but wait that is my modus Adam stop stealing mu irascibleness LOL
Regarding CJ Laity what can be said of a poet whose entire corpus is self published and self promoted?
also. I would argue that while Chicago has had a good scene with allot of good poets over the past 10 years that until we have some real committment from an MFA program, journal or press with money to promote these poets the scene will melt away. The reason that New York for example is able to remain vital (apart from the fact that it is NEW YORK) is that they have St Mark’s Poetry Project, Dixon Place, Bowery Poetry Club, The New School, Columbia U, Brooklyn Rail, WNYC, and more and more. We cannot even get our local public radio station to keep an arts show. What does that say about Chicago??
“Regarding CJ Laity what can be said of a poet whose entire corpus is self published and self promoted?”
I think these self-published poets might have something to say about it:
Alexander Pope
William Blake
Walt Whitman
E. E. Cummings
Ezra Pound
T.S. Eliot
Edgar Allan Poe
Robert Bly
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Robinson Jeffers
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Percy Bysshe Shelly
Robert Service
Carl Sandburg
Talk about your ‘cheap shots.’ What does self-publishing really have to do with the quality of the poetry? Compared to most of the crap being published today we’re probably better off with the ’self-published’ stuff.
I’m not sure why Ray thinks I am nothing but “self promoted.” I headlined the Printers Row Book Fair poetry stage five years in a row–the Chicago Tribune promoted that, once even publishing my photo next to Studs Terkel’s (by the way my photo first appeared in the Trib in 1991). I seem to remember Ray once sending the Book Fair a letter of complaint because he felt the experimental poets should have been given the stage instead of me or others like me, and I thought that was rather rude. I recently did an hour for the Printers Ball. Poetry Magazine promoted that. I hosted a huge event for the Chicago Public Library two years in a row; the City of Chicago promoted that with their program that had my photo near Charles Simic’s in 2008 and my photo near Rita Dove’s in 2009. I hosted an hour at the Chicago Blues Fest, promoted by the Mayor’s Office of Special Events. I’ve published six issues of Cram so far, none of which contain anything written by myself. I have been published in a few journals, in After Hours and in two Tia Chucha Press anthologies, but I am known more as a poetry organizer than I am a published poet. I very rarely attempt to get my stuff published and yes, I’ve self-published a few books, one of which nearly sold out on the first day I made it available. Ray doesn’t want to recognize me because I’m not part of his “new Chicago school” (I’m as old school as it gets) and because I’m not part of any academic circle. But I’ve been here, in Chicago, part of the lit scene, since 1983 when I first moved here and studied at Columbia College. But of course I can only share my advise; I can’t force you to take it.
Some poems by Larry Sawyer are now at The Argotist Online:
http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Sawyer%20poems.htm
This may be naive of me but why would any poet want to be part of a school anyway, unless it’s to ride on the backs of others’ publicity. Surley any poet worth their salt would want to be a loner, like Blake or Whitman, not part of some “one fit for all” outfit.
Have you noticed any of the poets listed here writing in about how happy they are to be included in a school? You’re missing the point, which is sociological. It’s not about poets’ desires. I shall try to fly by those nets, myself, but so what?
Perhaps so, but many poets would, indeed, be happy, as it confers a certain amount of validity to their practice, and, of course, lest we forget, publishing opportunities. Look at the careers of the Beats, for example. Had they not been seen as a school (albeit self-proclaimed) would we really have paid that much attention to them individually, I doubt it.
How exactly does proclaiming oneself a “school” increase one’s chances of getting published? I would hope that publication still comes based on the merit of the poetry itself, not because one is accepted as part of a “school”. In fact, that’s the entire problem with the poetry scene in Chicago today: there is too much nepotism. All you have to do today to get published or featured on a regular basis is be friends with the right people or perhaps even work for the same media sources that promote your movement.
The Beats weren’t recognized because they called themselves Beats, in fact it wasn’t until the media proclaimed the Beats “Beatniks” (with all the negative connotations attached to it) that anyone really paid attention to that moniker. The Beat poets were recognized because they were anarchists–they rejected American values and were even put on trial for obscenity; and they celebrated non-conformity–they were anti-school. The Beat Movement served as the birth of the performance poetry movement. Does that sound even vaguely like the “new Chicago school” of experimental poetry that you are pitching?
In the early nineties I was part of what we dubbed the Saloon Poetry Movement. Just like you, we had our friends working at the Reader and at New City who hailed us as the new Chicago poetry. We thought we were the shit. Have you ever heard of the Saloon Poetry Movement? Probably not. And that’s my point.
CJ, to take your points in order:
‘How exactly does proclaiming oneself a “school” increase one’s chances of getting published?’
Not all schools are self-proclaimed, of course, but both types can help the individual members to get published, by conferring upon them a certain credibility, and it is certainly the case that most publishers like to publish poetry by members of a school rather than by maverick poets because publishers, being business people first, like to play safe, and naturally want a return on their investment.
‘I would hope that publication still comes based on the merit of the poetry itself, not because one is accepted as part of a “school”.’
I think your being slightly idealistic here CJ.
‘In fact, that’s the entire problem with the poetry scene in Chicago today: there is too much nepotism. All you have to do today to get published or featured on a regular basis is be friends with the right people or perhaps even work for the same media sources that promote your movement.’
I don’t know about Chicago, but the point you make is the point I’m making about schools in general. To be outside of a school is bad news for an ambitious poet.
‘The Beats weren’t recognized because they called themselves Beats, in fact it wasn’t until the media proclaimed the Beats “Beatniks” (with all the negative connotations attached to it) that anyone really paid attention to that moniker.’
Perhaps, but Ginsberg is renowned for his publishing it as a school thenceforth.
‘Does that sound even vaguely like the “new Chicago school” of experimental poetry that you are pitching?’
I’m not pitching it.
‘Just like you, we had our friends working at the Reader and …..’
You will have to explain this to me, as I have no friends at the Reader etc’
Correction to the above:
‘Perhaps, but Ginsberg is renowned for his publishing it as a school thenceforth’
“publishing” should be “publicising”
FYI, there is an exchange on the Chicago poetry topic between Seth Abramson and me over at Robert Archambeau’s blog, under the post “Facebook vs. Danny’s Tavern.”
Kent
Kent, I tend to take your position on this. Although, Seth’s position, if it were the case, would be far healthier for poetry, yours, I think, is the grim truth of the matter. We see this not only historically but in action all the time: poets in physical proximity, meeting, socialising, forming cliques, scratching each other’s backs, conspiring behind closed physical doors etc. all for the purpose of gaining reputations. Such methods would be difficult if limited to online interactions, which, by and large, insist on more open and honest interactions.
Well, I beg to differ here, Jeffrey.
Take a look at Flarf!
Kent
“Well, I beg to differ here, Jeffrey.
Take a look at Flarf!”
Actually, Kent, I think Jeffrey was referring to poetry.
:-)
Kent, I don’t know if flarf really considers itself as a serious “school”.
Jeffrey,
I wasn’t referring to Flarf as a “school.” I was referring to your comment that internet relations lead to more “open and honest interactions,” in distinction to poets’ “forming cliques, scratching each other’s backs, conspiring behind closed physical doors etc. all for the purpose of gaining reputations.”
The latter list, I’m afraid, describes Flarf behavior quite well.
Jeffrey, we will simply have to agree to disagree on this. I do not agree with anything you said, not in the slightest.
Please list the top ten best selling poets in America and tell me what “schools” they belong to. Achy Obejas, for example, had her little chapbook of poetry appear in the New York Times Bestseller list. What school does she belong to? Poets become popular because they are different than anything else out there, not because they are part of a group of poets who are all doing the same thing. If what you say is even slightly true, then it could backfire on you as well. When a member of your school’s book of poetry totally bombs and doesn’t sell a single copy, then everyone in the school would be blacklisted by the publishers, according to your philosophy.
If believing that poetry should be published because it is good poetry not because it was written by someone who is part of a “school” is being idealistic, then I will remain idealistic. Are you telling me you would seriously want you work published based on the criteria; you would be satisfied with that?
When I said “just like you, we had our friends working for the Reader” I wasn’t addressing you personally, but your entire “school”. Jonathan Messinger, for example, works for Time Out. Jonathan Messinger is part of a certain group of poets. Thus Jonathan Messinger gives more attention to those poets. On the other hand, the Poetry Slam is more mainstream, thus gets more attention from mainstream publications.
What I have observed about the so-called experimental movement in Chicago is that it is not broken. Seems you guys are doing very well as-is. So why try to fix it?
This is the implosion that takes place after you label what you are doing. First you name your movement because you want to be known in history as the guy who named some great movement. But now you have to define what that name means. Now certain poets who otherwise felt like they were part of your movement don’t fit into that definition and your movement becomes a little bit smaller. Next it is inevitable, you get upset with some poet and kick her out of the school. Now people begin to get upset because the movement isn’t fun anymore, because you are using your school to basically extort poets, basically creating a rule that if they don’t conform, they won’t be part of your school. And then, someone wants to be the Grand Poohbah of the school. But of course someone else wants to be Grand Poohbah as well. The school gets divided into two. Finally, you college buddies get married, move away, some of them stop writing, some of them become famous and act like they don’t even know you anymore–and your school shrivels down to just about nothing. After that, the next generation of poets pop up out of nowhere and they begin to do what you should have kept on doing–have fun with poetry and let the cards fall where they may. This new generation has never even heard of your school of poetry and they give you no respect whatsoever. And the cycle begins again.
Kent, I may be wrong, but I assumed the flarf “innovators” were all real-world friends; they certainly are now. It would be very difficult for exclusively email-friends to pull-off what flarf did. I think there has to be a more social interaction to do this successfully.
[With apologies to Mayakovsky]
Johnson (waking up in the middle of the night): I’m afraid! I’m afraid!
Electronic Nose-obstruction-removal-machine (rushing into the room): Kent, what’s wrong?
Johnson (eyes wide open): I’m afraid that Flarf is all for the purpose of gaining reputations!
CJ—point by point:
‘Please list the top ten best selling poets in America and tell me what “schools” they belong to. Achy Obejas, for example, had her little chapbook of poetry appear in the New York Times Bestseller list. What school does she belong to?’
The mainstream, I presume.
‘Poets become popular because they are different than anything else out there, not because they are part of a group of poets who are all doing the same thing.’
I think this is still a council of perfection and not the reality.
‘If what you say is even slightly true, then it could backfire on you as well. When a member of your school’s book of poetry totally bombs and doesn’t sell a single copy, then everyone in the school would be blacklisted by the publishers, according to your philosophy.’
I think you are too fixated on poetry as merchandise. I assume you are coming from a mainstream angle on this?
‘If believing that poetry should be published because it is good poetry not because it was written by someone who is part of a “school” is being idealistic, then I will remain idealistic. Are you telling me you would seriously want you work published based on the criteria; you would be satisfied with that?’
I don’t follow your last sentence. I do believe, though, poetry should be published because it is good. Indeed, if you look closely at what I have said about schools, it nowhere mentions that good poetry should not be published. It only mentions the likelihood that publishers would prefer to publish members of a school than a maverick.
‘When I said “just like you, we had our friends working for the Reader” I wasn’t addressing you personally, but your entire “school”.’
I have no school. You must have gathered this by now from my criticisms of schools.
‘This is the implosion that takes place after you label what you are doing. First you name your movement because you want to be known in history as the guy who named some great movement. But now you have to define what that name means. Now certain poets who otherwise felt like they were part of your movement don’t fit into that definition and your movement becomes a little bit smaller. Next it is inevitable, you get upset with some poet and kick her out of the school. Now people begin to get upset because the movement isn’t fun anymore, because you are using your school to basically extort poets, basically creating a rule that if they don’t conform, they won’t be part of your school. And then, someone wants to be the Grand Poohbah of the school. But of course someone else wants to be Grand Poohbah as well. The school gets divided into two. Finally, you college buddies get married, move away, some of them stop writing, some of them become famous and act like they don’t even know you anymore–and your school shrivels down to just about nothing. After that, the next generation of poets pop up out of nowhere and they begin to do what you should have kept on doing–have fun with poetry and let the cards fall where they may. This new generation has never even heard of your school of poetry and they give you no respect whatsoever. And the cycle begins again.’
I assume you’re not addressing me personally by all of this?
Jordan, I wake with panic attacks in the middle of the night, so you’ll have to tell me more about this new machine.
Hey, it was just the tail end of a *quote,* but your comment was pretty funny.
Kent
Yes, I’m not addressing you personally, when I say “you” it is a generalization meaning anyone who wants to turn poetry into an exclusive club. Like I said, I’ll just have to agree to disagree with you. The point of getting published is to get your poetry into the hands of the people, hopefully non-poets, so yes, whether it be micropress, small press or mainstream, poetry books are merchandise, of course. Every publisher has a different philosphy and is looking for different styles or subject matter, so to gereralize it by saying publishers prefer work coming from schools rather than mavericks, well, you will need to let us know what you are basing that assumption on. Has here been some poll taken of publishers that we don’t know about? I think most publishers, school or no school, are looking for a track record from the individual, that you’ve been published in some respectable journals or that you otherwise have some type of established following of people who are going to want to buy your book. After all, it’s poetry, and publishing poetry is probably the biggest gamble a publisher can take. No matter the size of the publisher, it’s goal is to sell books–right? This is why Billy Corgan, who is a great musician but a pretty lousy poet, was able to instantly land a deal with a major publisher and have his poetry book become a bestseller, while some of the most talented poets still have to go to the kinkos and self-publish.
My intention is not to be insulting, but let’s be honest, besides John Beer slightly reminding me of Gregory Corso, I’m really not seeing any Ginsbergs or Burroughs’ in Chicago yet so let’s not delude ourselves. The Beat Generation was a fluke. You can’t try to force it to happen for yourselves. Something like that doesn’t just magically happen because you declare yourselves a school. If it ws that easy everyone would be doing it. I would guess the term Beat came up over a joint or a needle, not from a round table at some panel discussion or from an essay pitching the idea.
Thanks, Kent. Aim to please etc. And sorry to hear about the panic attacks. Those aren’t fun.
CJ, I agree that publishers will always publish poetry they think they can sell. My point is that a lot of good poetry will never sell, simply because it is not mainstream. Schools, in part, function as a response to this, by creating enough publicity to encourage a following/readership, and, on the strength of this, convince a publisher that they are worth publishing.
For an unestablished non-mainstream poet who is not part of a school, getting published is very difficult because unless they can come up with a unique selling point (to use a marketing term) to persuade a publisher to take them on, they are stuck. This is why so many poets try to either join a school, or start their own.
I’m not saying that schools exist entirely for these reasons; most exist because they have genuine aesthetic differences with other schools. But they do offer a way into publishing for poets who otherwise would remain unpublished.
You make some valid points to be sure, but then who decides who is part of the new Chicago school and who is not part of the new Chicago school. When Robbie Q features some new school poets in the Encyclopedia Show, do you say, hey, he’s cool, he can be part of our school, or is he not new school because he’s a performance poet? Is Jennifer Karmin new school, even though her work is more socially conscious and politically active than much of the language or postmodern poetry of the “experimental” poets? If she is not new school, then by extension, is the Red Rover Series then left out of the new Chicago school? Do poets get elected into the school? Do poets get asked first if they want to be part of the school? How long does it take and how do you know when your school is legitimate. You can’t just declare yourselves the “new Chicago school”–somehow has to verify it. Certainly if you sent your manuscript to a publisher today and said, I’m part of the new Chicago school, the publisher would say, what the heck is that? Do you wait until some unsolicited media sources recognize your school as the new school or do you get your friends who work in the media to help you legitimize it. If twenty of your friends confirm that you are the “new school” on their blogs, is it then legitimate? What if a bunch of other poets say, bullshit, you aren’t the new school, we are. What then? And at what point does your “new school” become old?
I get what you are saying, it just seems schools and movements are figments of the imagination that sometimes, on very rare occassions, become real by pure accident.
‘You make some valid points to be sure, but then who decides who is part of the new Chicago school and who is not part of the new Chicago school. When Robbie Q features some new school poets in the Encyclopedia Show, do you say, hey, he’s cool, he can be part of our school, or is he not new school because he’s a performance poet? Is Jennifer Karmin new school, even though her work is more socially conscious and politically active than much of the language or postmodern poetry of the “experimental” poets? If she is not new school, then by extension, is the Red Rover Series then left out of the new Chicago school? Do poets get elected into the school? Do poets get asked first if they want to be part of the school? How long does it take and how do you know when your school is legitimate.’
Your questions assume, understandably, that the process of “selection” is orderly and based on some underlying common criteria shared by seemingly disparate poets, whereas my guess is that the whole process is largely based on social networking and favouritism. Of course, this only applies if the poets supposedly part of a school have no written manifesto; in the absence of a manifesto, it is really nothing more than a clique to further the individual poets’ reputations via publishing and poetry readings etc. If the participants do have a manifesto then the enterprise has more integrity. In the absence of a manifesto any critic/academic (and it is usually these) can come up with a makeshift reason as to why poet A and poet B are similar, and, therefore, can be classified as part of a school. Of course, manifestos seem to be out of fashion in literary circles these days, but without them, there can be no real structured way to decide who should be in a school.
‘You can’t just declare yourselves the “new Chicago school”–somehow has to verify it. Certainly if you sent your manuscript to a publisher today and said, I’m part of the new Chicago school, the publisher would say, what the heck is that? Do you wait until some unsolicited media sources recognize your school as the new school or do you get your friends who work in the media to help you legitimize it. If twenty of your friends confirm that you are the “new school” on their blogs, is it then legitimate? What if a bunch of other poets say, bullshit, you aren’t the new school, we are. What then? And at what point does your “new school” become old? I get what you are saying, it just seems schools and movements are figments of the imagination that sometimes, on very rare occasions, become real by pure accident.’
As I said above, without a manifesto verification is difficult. Most publishers hear of a new school from critics/academics proclaiming that such is the case. Because publishers are used to hearing such claims they tend not to question them, and accept them as given. It doesn’t really matter to publishers, anyway, whether the school is a reality or not, as long as readers, encouraged by the critics/academics, believe it. Once publishers are confident that there are enough of these readers, they are likely to publish the poets forming the purported school.
well said
touché
Thanks
For those interested in context, to understand why Kent, although intelligent, genuine, funny & provocative as ever–don’t know Chicago–why all his folks, aren’t all our folks.
http://www.poetrycenter.org/node/14
http://paulhooverpoetry.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_school_%28literary_criticism%29
Just because someone moves here to teach/study in Chicago and wear a Cubs hat doesn’t make you a Chicago poet–it’s not geography or a school–there’s a history and a soul.
Thanks, Bliss. So Paul Hoover, who was born in Virginia, moved to Chicago, was poetry editor of Chicago Review, and now lives in San Francisco is a real Chicago poet, but Devin Johnston, who was born (I think) in North Carolina, moved to Chicago, was poetry editor of Chicago Review, and now lives in St. Louis, is not. Glad you straightened that out.
Not worth responding to these people, BB.