Preface - Electronic Poetry Center

seems to be a general consensus on this. In any event, to go on as I have just
done wouldn’t explain why this antagonism exists in the first place, nor how to
theorize it in a reflexive way as a means toward interpreting the nature of this
listserv practice, and the potentials for both its poetry and its prose. As we
know blah blah blah, the history of prose, in all its forms – and this evidently is
no exception - is one of positioning itself as the natural communicative
ideology, in comparison to poetry. This seems the case recently regardless of
medium – so that, for instance, the poetry on the listserv is criticized for being
"hard-copy," whereas there is no reflexive critique at all of the listserv prose as
being equally – if not more – so. That’s just one recent example of the agonism
between the genres. Now there is a preference for debate across the boundary
of the listerv itself (with a non-member) in prose, rather than beginning one
between the thinking in prose and in poetry on the listserv itself. Expansionism,
always the way. How can people interested in poetry not be interested in
thinking in poetry especially in this listserv format? The common denominator
prevails: its the most conservative articulation that gets the attention: so there’s
a collective rallying of ‘explaining to do’ when the listserv is challenged by
someone ‘from outside’. While the listserv’s decentred centre, the poem itself,
performs its own variety of common excesses. This too long, but hey, only the
letters in these words have repeated (some might find comfort in saying).