Time in Time: Short Poems, Long Poems, and the Rhetoric of North American Avant-Gardism, 1963-2008

251 Pages·2013·10.937 MB·English

by  Smith, J Mark(Editor)

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TIME
IN
TIME
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TIME
IN
TIME
Short Poems,
Long Poems,
and the Rhetoric of North American
Avant-Gardism,
1963–2008
EDITED BY J. MARK SMITH
MCGILL-QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY PRESS
Montreal&Kingston • London • Ithaca
smith front:Layout 1 12/5/12 7:10 AM Page iv
© McGill-Queen’sUniversityPress2013
isbn978-0-7735-4083-5
Legaldepositfirstquarter2013
BibliothèquenationaleduQuébec
PrintedinCanadaonacid-freepaperthatis100%ancientforestfree(100%
post-consumerrecycled),processedchlorinefree
ThisbookhasbeenpublishedwiththehelpofagrantfromtheCanadian
FederationfortheHumanitiesandSocialSciences,throughtheAwardsto
ScholarlyPublicationsProgram,usingfundsprovidedbytheSocialSciences
andHumanitiesResearchCouncilofCanada.
McGill-Queen’sUniversityPressacknowledgesthesupportoftheCanada
CouncilfortheArtsforourpublishingprogram.Wealsoacknowledgethe
financialsupportoftheGovernmentofCanadathroughtheCanadaBook
Fundforourpublishingactivities.
LibraryandArchivesCanadaCataloguinginPublication
Timeintime:shortpoems,longpoems,andtherhetoricofNorthAmerican
avant-gardism,1963–2008/editedbyJ.MarkSmith.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
isbn978-0-7735-4083-5
1.Experimentalpoetry,American–20thcentury–Historyandcriticism. 2.
Experimentalpoetry,American–21stcentury–Historyandcriticism. 3.Exper-
imentalpoetry,Canadian(English)–20thcentury–Historyandcriticism. 4.
Experimentalpoetry,Canadian(English)–21stcentury–Historyandcriticism.
I.Smith,J.Mark
ps325.t542013 811'.540911 c2012-906297-9
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Contents
Acknowledgments | vii
Abbreviations | ix
1 Introduction:PoeticFormandtheRhetoricof
NorthAmericanAvant-Gardism,1963–2008 | 3
j. mark smith
2 LyricandExperimentalLongPoems:Intersections | 22
rachel blau duplessis
3 MoreApparentthanReal:TheLyric/Avant-Garde
Divide | 51
kerry doyle
4 HannahWeiner’sBookinAir:ClairvoyantJournaland
theClair-StylePoems | 75
jennifer russo
5 TheLyricTurn:APoeticsofFalling | 102
erín moure
6 BytheNumbers:JacksonMacLow’sLightPoems
andAlgorithmicDigraphism | 109
michael o’driscoll
7 BetterLivingthrough‘Pataphysics:TheBiosemiotics
ofKennethGoldsmith | 132
adam dickinson
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8 GettingEveryWordIn:A.R.Ammons’sGarbage
andtheCorpora | 152
j. mark smith
9 DayLabour | 173
steve mccaffery
Notes | 187
Bibliography | 217
Contributors | 231
Index | 233
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Acknowledgments
“LyricandExperimentalLongPoems:Intersections”:“APoemforPainters”
by JohnWieners from The HotelWentley Poems: OriginalVersions (San
Francisco:DavidHaselwood,1965)©1958,1965,renewed1984,isusedby
permissionof theJohnWienersLiteraryTrust,RaymondFoye,executor.
Linesfrom“AnImpossiblePoem”byGeorgeOppenfromNewCollected
Poems(NewYork:NewDirections,2002)©LindaOppen,hasbeenquoted
withpermission.SomeoftheanalysisofZukofsky’sworkinthisessayalso
appearsinRachelBlauDuPlessis,PurplePassages:Pound,Eliot,Zukofsky,
Olson,Creeley,andtheEndsofPatriarchalPoetry(IowaCity:Universityof
IowaPress,2012).WiththankstoTheUniversityofIowaPress.
“MoreApparentthanReal:TheLyric/Avant-GardeDivide”:sectioniii
of “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction,” The Collected Poems of Wallace
Stevens(NewYork:Vintage/RandomHouse,1990),isusedbypermission
ofRandomHouse.
“HannahWeiner’sBookInAir:ClairvoyantJournalandtheClair-Style
Poems”: excerpts and images from pages 1,16,29,34,48,54 of Hannah
Weiner’sClairvoyantJournal;and63,127ofHannahWeiner’sOpenHouse
(Berkeley:KenningEditions,2007)areusedbypermissionofCharlesBern-
steinforHannahWeinerintrust.
“The Lyric Turn:A Poetics of Falling”by Erín Moure was first pub-
lished(as“OCadoiro:TheCataract”)inMyBelovedWager:Essaysfroma
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viii Acknowledgments
WritingPractice(Edmonton:NeWestPress,2009),271–8.Reprintedbyper-
missionofNeWest.
“By the Numbers:Jackson Mac Low’s Light Poems andAlgorithmic
Digraphism”:excerptsfrompages19and76of22LightPoemsbyJackson
Mac Low (LosAngeles:Black Sparrow Press,1968);excerpts from pages
208–9,220,222–3,228,and 230 of Mac Low’s Thing of Beauty: New and
Selected Works (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008); and an
imageof“JacksonMacLow’slightchart”frompage41of22LightPoemsare
usedbypermissionofAnneTardosforJacksonMacLowintrust.
“Getting EveryWord In:A.R.Ammons’s Garbage and the Corpora”:
Excerptsfrompages22,25–6,49,55,63–4,and78ofGarbagebyA.R.Ammons
(NewYork and London:W.W.Norton,1993) are used by permission of
W.W.Norton.
An early version of“Day Labour”by Steve McCaffery was first pub-
lishedas“FromMusetoMousepad:InformaticsandtheAvant-Garde,”in
Phrasis:StudiesinLanguageandLiterature,49.1(Fall2008):179–97.
IwouldliketothankDavidHiggins,Deanof theFacultyofArtsand
ScienceatGrantMacEwanUniversity,forcrucialfinancialandmoralsup-
portofthisprojectatvariousstepsalongtheway;theAwardstoScholarly
PublicationProgram(aspp)oftheCanadianFederationfortheHuman-
itiesandSocialSciencesforgenerouslysubsidizingthepublicationofthe
book;RogerDavis,myformercolleagueatGrantMacEwanUniversityfor
co-organizingwithmethe2009conferenceoncontemporarypoetryand
poetics that was the book’s beginning point;Jonathan Crago at McGill-
Queen’sUniversityPressforhisastuteandwell-timededitorialadvice;the
threeanonymousreadersoftheinitialversionofthemanuscriptfortheir
criticalsuggestions;AnitaParkerforherassistanceinpreparingtheman-
uscript; and Susan Glickman,who copy-edited it.Much love to Jen and
Gabe–yes,Papa’sbookisfinishednow!
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Abbreviations
acf HughKenner,“ArtinaClosedField,”1982.
al JacquesDerrida,ActsofLiterature,1992.
b JesperHoffmeyer,Biosemiotics,2008.
bsp TheBlackSparrowPressarchive,BrucePeelSpecial
CollectionsLibrary,UniversityofAlberta.
bw HannahWeiner,“BigWords,”1974.
cj HannahWeiner,ClairvoyantJournal,1974.
di M.M.Bakhtin,TheDialogicImagination,1981.
doi MarjoriePerloff,DanceoftheIntellect,1985.
ewn TimothyMorton,EcologywithoutNature,2007.
g A.R.Ammons,Garbage,1993.
in AlainBadiou,HandbookofInaesthetics,2005.
jb JackSpicer,CollectedLectures,1998.
kr JuliaKristeva,TheKristevaReader,1986.
ld LouisZukofsky,“InterviewbyL.S.Dembo,”1969.
lp JacksonMacLow,22LightPoems,1968.
mbm BenoitMandelbrotandRichardL.Hudson,
The(Mis)BehaviourofMarkets,2004.
mm GérardGenette,Mimologics,1994.
ncp GeorgeOppen,NewCollectedPoems,2002.
ni SteveMcCaffery,NorthofIntention,1986.