Preface - Electronic Poetry Center

Lee Bartlett did with Palmer in the New Mexicao book Talking Poetry. MP can
speak for himself there.
From: Maria Damon
Subject: Re: Criteria
a coupla points
i never intended any of my responses to your queries to be vituperative or
dismissive. i’m not "lashing out;" if i seem to be, that’s my "style," as others on
the list can attest; it has nothing to do with the topic.
i have never written on language poetry nor have a particular stake in its
thriving or wilting. i’m on the list because i met charles bernstein at a
conference and he offered to sign me up. i sd sure, great. i’d never been on a
list before. … so, in my particular case, the people who "reached out" to me are
the people whose list i joined. i’ve felt welcome, though it’s been clear during
some interactions that i’m coming from a different place. i try to take to heart
robert duncan’s "no good or bad poetry," perhaps because as a fellow-traveler
and sometime participant in all kinds of schools that stress relativity, from the
pop-psych insistence on "I statements" ("I like this" rather than "this is good")
to cultural studies’s underlying ethos of cultural relativity (for inst., i prefer
montaigne to most of his contemporaries, etc.)
anyway, those who are of the "personal experience is a bore, personal
anecdotes are narcissistic and self-indulgent" persuasion (which cuts across
ideological orientation, i’ve found) are probably dozing off by now, but i
wanted to clarify one person’s history w/ the POETICS list and reflections on
your latest forward. come on down! (you can always use the DIGEST option)