Preface - Electronic Poetry Center

From: Mark Wallace
Subject: bland abstract lyrics, or you’ve got wheat in your eye
Ron Silliman’s side comment, a few days ago, that "bland abstract lyrics" are
now the dominant strain of avant garde writing in 1995 is a criticism that
emerging avant garde writers need to pay close attention to. The silence
attending his remark (which, admittedly, he made on the side of other concerns)
is disturbing. Do the younger avant garde writers on this list accept Ron’s
characterization? Are the potential implications of such a comment (that new
avant garde writers are out of touch, apolitical, or otherwise spaced out) also
things that you accept? I think that there’s a far vaster range of committed,
intelligent, and innovative emerging writers out there than such a comment
would imply, although it may be true that there’s more bland abstract
disengagement than we ought to be comfortable with. Whatever the truth of
Ron’s statement, is it acceptable for younger writers to let an older, justifiably
respected writer such as Ron Silliman be the only commentator on this list on
the subject of what emerging avant garde writers are up to? Would not quiet on
this subject imply a (perhaps unintentional) public agreement, an implied
agreement that we ought very definitely to challenge?