February 15, 2008
Calling Wallace Stevens
A couple of weeks ago, in a roundup of AWP blogging, we flagged a post by Reginald Shepherd over at Harriet, the Poetry Foundation’s blog, in which he used the term “post-avant.” We asked for a definition. He kindly provided one here:
“Post-avant” poets, he explained, “can be described as writers who, at their best, have imbibed the lessons of the modernists and their successors in what might be called the experimental or avant-garde stream of American poets…without feeling the need (as so many other poetic formations have) to pledge allegiance to a particular group identity (the poetry world is full of fence-building and turf wars) or a particular mode of proceeding artistically….”
Joan Houlihan, the coiner of the phrase, also weighed in.
Meanwhle, back at Harriet, Shepherd explored the concept of post-avant further in a post on “Who You Callin’ ‘Post-Avant’?” That’s triggered a heated debate in the comments—111 and counting—that, to an outsider, is a fascinating example of the kind of “fence-building and turf wars” Shepherd referred to. As one commenter noted, “Damn, y’all. It’s like Knots Landing in here. Somebody, call Wallace Stevens!”
But the thread is also a guide, in miniature, to swaths of contemporary poetry’s ideological/political/aesthetic terrain. The debate’s too complex to do justice to here, but if you care at all about how contemporary poets define what they and others do, it’s worth a gander.
Jennifer Howard | Posted on Friday February 15, 2008 | Permalink
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