The inimitable James Stotts on Paul Killebrew’s Flowers: “Ashbery is the model for an overwhelming amount of our bad poetry, when it pretends to be avant-garde. These imitators equate his tone — non-committal, over-allusive, abstract-mundane — with his message, which is a variation on inner complication.” I object! James means “conflate” rather than “equate.” Footnotes to follow in some subsequent post….
this objection, only because i didn't think i could use the word i really wanted: con-fuse.<br /><br />[joe],<br />the ashbery problem is one i am constantly thinking about–the zero-sum, no-stakes terrorism of post-century modernism. it is almost impossible to criticize, and we are almost infinitely compelled to imitate it.<br />there are goldstiffies out there with such arrogant ego-sucks