“The Contradiction” (by David Spear) |
Why am I not surprised that Michael Robbins, in “reviewing” Lyn Hejinian’s My Life and My Life in the Nineties, begins with a truth (that Language poetry is boring), then accurately characterizes Hejinian’s approach: “writing as a paradoxically polished automatism.” Robbins is obviously a bright guy. Of course, calling Hejinian’s approach paradoxical doesn’t explain or justify it; in fact, it unmasks it as an exercise in cynicism: polish gives the lie to the writing’s ersatz automatism. Her work tells us that meaning is radically contingent, a construct best left to you, dear reader, as long as you pony up $16.95 for the book.
Robbins rightly views all this with a jaundiced eye, although he tips his hand when he drags in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves (along with Beckett and Ashbery) to salve Hejinian’s by now certainly wounded ego. Still, “My Life is repellent,” he goes on to say. It cannot hold his attention. It is monotonous. And yet, miraculously, in the last line of this patchwork of incoherencies, Robbins has the gall to write: “My Life—with its wireless lyricism, its wooden-toothed jabbering, its ‘unbounded identity and geographical fluidity’—continues to matter.” Absolutely nothing that goes before this statement justifies it; in fact, everything that goes before undermines it.
But Robbins is as cynical in his way as Hejinian is in hers. He can brandish his aesthetic rapier but in the end must remind his fellow PoBiz travelers that the criticism isn’t real. The rapier’s rubber. It’s just a movie, folks! Like Alien vs. Predator. And now that it’s over you can unmute your cell phones and do a quick check of Google alerts to see if anyone mentioned your name while you sat in the dark. But on your way out don’t forget to drop those 3D glasses in the bin. There’s a long line of suckers waiting for the next show.
Interesting, in the context of such "writing" and "criticism" as the examples here by Hejinian and Robbins, to consider the weight of recent statements by Barack Obama and others in his administration, claiming that the government is not spying on Americans or our phone conversations or our e-mails or internet usage.<br /><br />Or, for instance, government officials who say,
Bain Valentine<br /><br />A deeper shade of narcissism<br />than heretofore evident in poetry<br />haunts conceptualism meant<br />to circumvent the hard parts<br />of writing about feelings<br />and meaning to make irrelevant<br />what they cannot do themselves<br />like over-praised children<br />but let’s be real the vulture <br />capitalists of poetry fall back<br />continually on our
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"the image IS NOT the phenomena of the (of any) excitement…."<br /><br />Bachelard would agree with this one! It's a profundity worth walking around inside for awhile. Thanks, Ed!
pee est<br /><br />and the sudden unsublimated , 'pure' image<br /><br />really (and un-really, too) do/does in every instance<br />…. excite me ( to no end)<br /><br />but of course and not at all<br />beside the point :<br /><br />the image IS NOT the phenomena of the (of any) excitement….<br /><br /><br /><br />"automatism went the way of Breton …. and good riddance -<br
I'm Buster Brown / I live in a shoe / that's my muse Fay / she lives in here too <br /><br />however, sometimes I leave this lonely room (house) and sit on my huge back deck<br />which overlooks my small weeds-full yard<br /><br />and wait for something to happen …. come visit when y'all have less time.<br /><br />SECRET URBAN HUT<br /><br />there are<br />yet<br />Secret Mountains
Somebody woke up on the right side of the bed today:))