Preface - Electronic Poetry Center

From: Ron Silliman
Subject: G2
Steve Evans always has interesting and valuable points to make. I want to
unpack a couple here.
> Apropos Claim 2: The ominous scenario in which the social is some-
> how "drained" away only makes sense if such devices as one finds in
> ITAT represent the exclusive means of criticizing existing social
> relations and evoking potentials for social transformation.
I didn’t (don’t) make any claim of exclusivity of devices for In the American
Tree and the concept makes no sense to me. I could point to hundreds of
alternative examples from my own generation alone that are equally social but
well outside the positioned critique that separates out most of the Tree’s poets
from the broader (less differentiated) terrain.
> Ron establishes a double bind for G2: continue to employ G1’s devices
> (in which case you’ll be labeled derivative and your motivation will be
> characterized as improper) or invent/adopt other devices (in which case
> you’ll be accused of permitting the "social" to "drain" away).
What other devices?
It is precisely the continuation of the same set of devices in increasingly modest
forms that characterizes the broader poetics of G2, as Steve calls it in a
curiously clinical abbreviation. It is that modesty, as such, that I was getting at
as a "draining of the social"– and I accept the possibility that it may actually
represent a much more complex ensemble of social phenomena, that may well
include grave doubt over the possibilities of collective action (say), all of which
would be well worth elaborating on at length
And I should note from the outset the obvious, that the choice of such forms
need not limit any individual poet from achieving as much as anybody ever has.