Preface - Electronic Poetry Center

From: Keith Tuma
Subject: Re: Criteria
Well, the conversation is getting interesting and, damn, just when I have a
thousand things to do–seminars to prepare, deadlines, self-imposed deadlines.
So I’m not going to write the world’s longest post on why I like to read poems
by, uh, Bernadette Mayer, Ron Silliman, Jerome Rothenberg, Lorine
Niedecker, Basil Bunting, Charles Bernstein, Michael Palmer, Cole Swensen,
Sir Thomas Wyatt, Frank Bidart, Thomas Campion, Baudelaire, Villon,
Catullus, Nathaniel Mackey, Nathaniel Tarn, Will Alexander, Robert Creeley,
Leslie Scalapino, Elizabeth Bishop, Thom Gunn, Dr. Suess, Turner Cassity,
Firdosi, Cid Corman, John Taggart, Clayton Eshleman, Homer, Horace,
Dickinson, Susan Howe, John Skelton, Mina Loy, Amiri Baraka, Larry Eigner,
Roy Fisher, Allen Fisher, Catherine Walsh, Maurice Scully, Gael Turnbull,
Peter Redgrove, David Dabydeen, H. D., Wallace Stevens, Laura Riding,
William Bronk, Paul Celan, Vallejo, Dante, Hugh Macdiarmid, Tom Raworth,
Sappho, William Northcutt … oh I’m already running out of gas. It’s a big and
glorious world: also crowded. And I don’t think of myself as much of a poet,
which might make a difference.
BUT, in the spirit of friendly dialogue, I would like to ask Alfred Corn–yes I’ve
read two of your books, A Various Light and the book about NY–a question.
Just don’t seem fair that you get to ask all the questions. You mention that you
have looked at langpo magazines and not been impressed and read a book of
essays on langpo and not been convinced. I’m wondering what magazines and
what critical book those were? And what put you off or didn’t convince? That
would clarify some things.
One final point: you seem to suggest that the only alternative to the model of
discourse-as-persuasion is solipsistic blather. Can’t agree.
It may be obvious, but who knows? So I’ll say that just because a name isn’t on
that list above doesn’t mean I don’t read him/her with pleasure and just because
it is doesn’t mean I read all of his/her work with pleasure. Must be cautious
with a ghost around and–hell–we also don’t want to wake up all the lurkers.
Oh, and one more thing: Michael Palmer doesn’t for the most part think of
himself as a language poet, though the issue is complicated. See the interview