Preface - Electronic Poetry Center

Actually, the question of age is a complex one all on its own. One of the real
values of The Art of Practice is its inclusion of a number of poets
generationally part of G1 who did not begin publishing until later than most of
those in Tree. (I’m reminded, say, how late both Jackson Mac Low and Hannah
Weiner were to publish regularly. When Jackson was my age, 48, he had
exactly 6 books in print.)
But I do think that there’s a generational dynamic (different for each G) that
focuses when poets are under still well under 35, and that to wait longer as a
generation to begin to stake out a space is itself a notable step, so that the
hesitancy implicit there must itself be looked at as part of the process (Think of
Olson’s age in comparison to Creeley, Blackburn et al, or of Burroughs to
Ginsberg & Kerouac, or of Williams to the Objectivists.)
>To clarify one general point in closing: I am not under the impression
> that a collective re-definition of what poetry is and does has as yet been
> articulated by G2
Yep, except for Pam, Lew, Kristin & Alan have at least made one stab.
>Given the way literary fields work in capitalist social formations, the
> failure to achieve such a collective redefinition will lead to a lot of
> interesting poetry disappearing
Absolutely! Several G1ers have noted in recent years how much the O-blek 12
formation of G2 reminds them of the younger writers who found themselves
active around certain modes of the NAP in the mid- to late-60s. David Schaff,
Bill Deemer, Harold Dull, d alexander, Lowell Levant, Ed Van Aelstyn, John
Gorham, Gail Dusenbery, Stan Persky, Seymour Faust, George Stanley,
William Anderson, Wilbur Wood, etc etc etc. But failing to distinguish their
terms from NAP1, NAP2 proved unable, unwilling to set up the institutions that
might have insured their own communities’ perpetuation into the future.
I am amazed and appalled that neither the Messerli nor the Hoover anthologies
include the work of Lew Welch. In the 1960s, he would have come into almost
any listing of the 24 or so most influential NAPpers. Such is history. You have
to write it yourself.