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How to Save the Avant-Garde from Being Merely Therapeutic
In my last post, I discussed a way of viewing Language Poetry that would reclaim its textual practices as aspects of a plausible social critique. Such a project is generally referred to as “recuperation,” and basically consists of the effort to save the valuable portion of a set of ideas and practices. As I remarked, Language Poetry suffers from two major theoretical problems: 1) an implausible, or esoteric, relation to Marxism, and 2) the general implausibility of Marxism as a theory for maximizing the public good. Either of these problems could be sufficient to cause the neglect of Language Poetry. Therefore I offered an account of Language Poetry that avoids both problems, as well as providing a plausible account of the value of Language Poetry for its inheritors (i.e. Flarf Poetry and Conceptual Writing). See below for more about this.
otherroom.org 