Abstract
Avant-garde in simple terms implies anything which is not cliché or traditional; instead, it is everything that is nonconformist. The very term stands for the works or artists who are experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, and society. Originally it is a French term, but it has its influence over the considerable span of the western world. It emerged during the modern age of English literature. However, still one can see its thorough implementation in postmodern literature, especially in postmodern American poetry like Language Poetry, Black Mountain Poetry, New York Poetry, San Francisco Renaissance, among others. Among all these schools, Language Poetry has probably the most befitting approach to avant-garde. As Avant-garde texts are entirely different from the mainstream, they arouse an unprecedented degree of difficulty in the interpretation. Language Poets- the avant-garde group in United States Poetry, that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s- hasn’t spared a single attempt to be an emblem of the avant-garde in this regard. The present study aims at detailing the enigmatic features of avant-garde literature and the difficulties one faces during the encounter with avant-garde, highly known as experimental literature by elaborating on the characteristics of Language poetry. Besides, the paper also endeavors to bring out salient features of Language Poetry by comparing it with conventional poetry.
Keywords: Avant-garde, experimental literature, postmodern poetry, Language poetry
Introduction to Avant-garde:
The concept of “avant-garde” which is often considered as a military metaphor referring to artists, writers, theorists, philosophers whose work is different from the mainstream. It is associated with the work of a major social and economic philosopher from the beginning of the nineteenth century, Henri de Saint-Simon. It was in France in the year after the restoration of the monarchy in 1815 that social theorists across the political spectrum sought ways of improving upon the associated political and social settlement. One of the most influential groups on the left of (this) political spectrum was gathered around Henri de Saint-Simon who, shortly before his death in 1825, elaborated a model of a state-technocratic socialism in which society would be led by a triumvirate of professions: the artist, the scientist, and the industrialist. Of these, the artist would be the ‘avant-garde’- and the term was first used in a non-military context, in this way, by Saint-Simon and his group (Cottington 5). What Pogiolli has to say about the term is that in the case of the avant-garde, it is an argument of self-assertion or self-defense used by a society in the strict sense against society in the larger sense. We might even say that avant-garde ideology is a social phenomenon precisely because of the social or antisocial character of the cultural and artistic manifestations that it sustains and expresses (4). Though the idea of the avant-garde was associated with the French Revolution in the mid-nineteenth century, gradually it was limited to the specific artistic groups that were considered at the forefront of the aesthetic exploration and break the accepted artistic routine and thus the concept of the collective revolutionary enlightenment became pallid and the term “avant-garde” made its limitation only to those artistic groups which work opposed to mainstream culture value by offering a new approach to aesthetic percept.
The modern concept of avant-garde started to be existing by the last quarter of the nineteenth century in France. The term has traveled a glorified way from romantic utopianism to modern culturalism. Braking the way from the political dimension, the term began to find its separate identity and found its path to the various arena of society. The term has so far been used both in a general, all-encompassing way, to refer to artistic media in the widest sense, including literature, music and theatre, photography and film, as well as fine and decorative art, and, more specifically, to refer to visual artists committed to experimental practice (Cottington 29). Being a movement both -avant-garde and modernity- share some common features, yet both are different to a certain degree. Calinescu has considered avant-garde as one of the five faces of modernity. He also has stated that there is probably no single trait of the avant-garde in any of its historical metamorphoses that are not implied or even prefigured in the broader scope of modernity. He, then, has separated avant-garde from the modernity by drawing some differences between these two movements. The avant-garde, he maintains, is in every respect more radical than modernity. Less flexible and less tolerant of nuances, it is naturally more dogmatic both in the sense of self-assertion and, conversely, in the sense of self-destruction. The avant-garde borrows practically all its elements from the modern tradition but at the same time blows them up, exaggerates them, and places them in the most unexpected contexts, often making them almost completely unrecognizable. (Calinescu 96)
The avant-garde was being practiced in various fields related to art, fashion, and literature. However, the present paper primarily focuses on the literature, the paper limits the inquiry into the field of literature and the difficulty one comes across while dealing with the avant-garde or experimental literature, postmodern poetry in general Language poetry in particular. Post-modern is not exactly the age where poetry flourished like it did in Elizabethan and romantic age. The era is generally known for its prose and novels. Authors of the age were choosing prose style to depict their post-war frustration. A variety of novels and plays came into being, which was true to post-modern society. All these novels and prose tracts were abounded with some common features which eventually become the characteristics of postmodern literature. When prose works were loyally following these characteristics, the poetry of the age kept itself aloof from it. The age itself is free from any prejudiced assumption aroused from previous literary periods. Postmodern poetry has clearly shown a shift from modernist poetry even earlier than that. There is a marked difference in the form, language and subject matter of postmodern poetry. Earlier schools of poetry have shown a particular adherence to form that is to say, to meter, to rhyme to devices among. In contrast, postmodern poetry can be seen going without any particular form, mostly written in freestyle without any barrier of structure and rhyme. A move from formal stanza to irregular stanza along with unconventional; and broken syntax is clearly visible. Another feature that differentiates postmodern poetry from the poetry of its earlier ages is the use of language. Starting from the Chaucer to Metaphysical poets to Victorian poets, the language which has been used in their poetry is far different than the regular life. Although it has given the poetic touch to the verses, excessive use of figures of speech and rhetoric made them what Plato said, twice removed from reality. Further, the language which has been used in previous ages’ poetry is concrete and colloquial, whereas, in the postmodern age, it has been shifted to abstract and formal. Being affected by two disastrous world wars, the subject matter of postmodern poetry has taken a tremendous shift from those, of virtues and morality and social vices to the Self. Postmodern poetry majorly deals with personal experiences of day-to-day life. Postmodern poetry is more focused on the quest for self, problems, and troubles with the self rather than the quest for social values. Though some specific characteristics are common in a majority of postmodern poetry, for instance, the majority of them are experimental and radical enough to be claimed as the avant-garde. If one wants to talk about the particular characteristics of postmodern poetry, one has to go from school to school for each school does have its own distinguishing characteristic. The majority of poetry, which belonged to postmodern schools, has created a sort of enigma within themselves. The obvious reason behind it is, they are the avant-garde and therefore tend to be enigmatic. There are several reasons why avant-garde or experimental literature, especially poetry, is difficult to go through. The paper tries to elaborate on the causes by discussing the characteristics of the Language poetry and its degree of difficulty. But before one talks about it, one has to have a brief idea about what language poetry is.
Language poetry
A shift from romantic poetry to modern poetry in American literature had been brought by poets like Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson. Moreover, poets namely W.B. Yeats, William Carlos Williams, and, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, etc. had made the progress of the (modernist) movement much radiant in literature as a whole. And from W.H. Auden and Elizabeth Bishop to Frank O’Hara and Sylvia Plath, every poet also contributed their best to the age. Groups of poets such as ‘Imagist’, ‘Objectivist’, ‘Beat Generation’, ‘Confessionalists’, ‘New York School’, ‘Black Mountain Poets’ were formed in this very movement. Each school came with its own peculiar characteristics and every school was different from the other in that manner. The majority of them were claiming to be avant-garde and therefore, they did their best to be different from the trend. But among all these schools, the school of Language poetry went a bit high as far as the claim of the avant-garde is concerned. During the period of late 1960s and early 1970s, a new movement came into existence on the West Coast US, and it was named as Language Poetry with the release of a new magazine titled “This” in 1971. It was not simply a movement to bring renewed interest to language; it was a movement to challenge a complete perception of the reader who intended to read the poetry. The movement found its inspiration from the writings of Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Lois Zukofsky and sometimes from Barthes and Foucault and they all can be termed as the precursors of the movement which created an upheaval in the contemporary literary scenario.
When a literary group or movement comes into existence, it comes along with so many questions like, why the group needed to be born? Or why the name Language? Language poetry couldn’t be an exception. In fact, it has probably aroused more questions than any other literary movement, group or school had done ever before. As Chaitas comments, the emergence of the Language project represents, firstly, an example of combative restructuring in the field of American poetry of the late twentieth century. Secondly, the struggle over nomenclature surrounding the Language project revolved around the precarious status of a group of poets as a movement, school, current, trend, or tendency and its naming and/or its being named (296). In addition to this, he further states in the book that in the mid-to-late 1970s, the proper name ‘language/ ‘Language’ poetry was originally coined as an instrument of negative hetero-identification. What characterizes the early reception of Language poetry is hence the fact that nomenclature was implicated in a series of scenarios of stigmatization. (318) The group has made its debut with the publication of the magazine “This’ (1971-1982) edited by Robert Grenier and Watten. The journal was associated with the works of poets whose poetry was completely different from the trend i.e. radical. It was the time when poets like Steve Benson, Lyn Hejinian, Bernadette Mayer, Ron Silliman, Kit Robinson, Peter Seaton, Larry Eigner, Carla Harryman, Alan Davies emerged on the scene with a strikingly different notion of writing poetry. In the beginning, a single homogeneity among all these poets was that they all were different from the mainstream. Besides, they were highly inscrutable to society. The journal-This gave some of these poets a platform to give an identity to their inscrutability and also air to the moment to be spread out as Silliman said, “I HATE SPEECH.” Thus capitalized, these words in an essay entitled “On Speech”, the second of five short critical pieces by Robert Grenier in the first issue of This, the magazine he cofounded with Barrett Watten in winter 1971, announced a breach-and a new moment in American writing. (Silliman xv) The publication of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E magazine served a groundbreaking notion to the present scenario. It turned the writing of so-called Language poets into a genre. The journal was considered to be the Democracy of Language Poets as it was by, for and about language poets. Thirteen issues with three supplements, edited by Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein were published from February 1978 to October 1981. The magazine included several poets and writers associated with the same avant-garde quality of writing. They were free to expose themselves without having the fear of being understood. And the very fearlessness created a sort of thought-chaos in the mind of readers. The present paper, at this juncture, lists the chief characteristics of language poetry that applies to not only experimental poetry but almost all the avant-garde piece of art.
The foremost characteristic of Language poetry is, it is avant-garde. Avant-garde took its peak during the modern age, in that manner, Language poetry ought to have some characteristics of modern literature. But the era in which Language poetry emerged and flourished is of Postmodernity, so in that case, it must depict the characteristics of postmodern literature. But the relevant question here is, is Language poetry postmodernist? The question can trouble almost everyone who reads the Language poets’ work under the tagline of postmodern. If one takes literature as the mirror of society; the foremost task of literature is to represent the current scenario and characteristics of contemporary society which one can hardly find in Language poetry. Next to that, if talking about the characteristics of postmodern poetry, each school of postmodern poetry entertains different characteristics. They have few things in common like be experimental or radical, and they all are flourished in the same age. In this scenario, to justify Language poetry as postmodern poetry is quite a difficult task.
Moreover, Language poetry is considered combatively vaguer among all the postmodern poetry under the label of the avant-garde. And if one wants to discuss why and how avant-garde texts are enigmatic or inscrutable, Language poetry would be the best instance to be discussed about. In this context, in the first place, one has to draw out the characteristics of the Language school of poetry that can depict how, being an avant-garde text, Language poetry has created the enigma for the readers. The following are some of the obvious characteristics of the school that makes it enigmatic to readers:
Language-centered
The very name of the school includes this characteristic within. The Language poets were in fact, first called “language-centered” in Steve McCaffery’s 1976 essay, “The Death of the Subject”. The phrase ‘language-centered’ was first used by Bruce Andrews in 1973, and then Silliman mentioned it in the magazine called Ironwood (edited by Michael Cuddihy). Silliman declared themselves as a “community of concern for language as the centre of whatever activity poems might be” (Alcheringa 118). Ben Johnson commented about the great English poet Edmund Spenser that Spencer, in affecting the Ancients writ no language and by the language he meant Spencer had so much drawn on archaic use of words and hadn’t written the language which can be called new or no creativity in the way he expressed himself. In the context of Language poetry, one can say that they chose the name so because they intended to serve something fresh, something pure which can be called but language. No ornamentation, no style, no device just, pure language. Language poetry claims to be focused on the language above all. Language poets claim that they serve the purest language without any ornamentation. And when there is no ornamentation or coherence in a poetic work, to get the meaning of the work is quite an enigmatic task. The claim is so firm that this characteristic provides the ground for almost all other characteristics of language poetry. For instance, it is tough to comprehend why is Language poetry non-narrative or obscure or free from any figures of speech, and the response to all these questions is but it is language-centered.
Non-narrative
Narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells/narrates a story. The story is narrated by a narrator or character or subject. Narrative poetry is generally written in metrical form. Now Language poets do not believe in following any meter to write poetry, for meter is a barrier to them to serve the language. One can hardly find any of the Language poetry written in metrical composition. Bernstein has written some verses in metrical form, that is, with hard to match rhymes. Rhymes and meters perform a pivotal role in poetry, especially lyric or narrative poetry. But Language poets do not seem to like rhyme as they see it as a barrier. There’s no doubt, comments Reginald Gibbons in his article on rhymes, that rhyme at its most meaningful and phonetically inventive – even when it is used for comic effect – is or can be a powerful cognitive device. It is part of how poetry thinks, how it makes its own sort of “logic” – that is, how it effects its own way of persuading, enchanting, enlivening and moving us (63). Bernstein, again, has written few verses using rhymes but that is not to enchant, enliven or move readers but as if to mock the traditional method of using rhymes in poetry. Bernstein and his fellow language poets’ idea about narrative poetry is far different from the traditional narrative poetry. Although, Language prose-poetry is lengthy and they do narrate a sort of fragmented scenario, but to count them under the category of narrative poetry is highly doubtful. Take I Meet Osip Brik by Silliman as an example;
“Sidewalks, people waving, is incoming insurgents. Experience of the predicated. Spaces in which land mass. Smell of warm, weather of I. Needle of diamond or pine. These are only Q-tips and have no other morning. The season is not the presence of the new which it recognize. The lower the themes, the higher the life. a needle I suddenly diamond to pine. Great sneeze of senses shake in the loose sleeping. News from the insect room. Blink objects lepers here. Several the voice, one the brain.” (191)
Language poets do not at all follow what the rest of the world say about ‘narrative’ poetry and allow, rather force the reader to adopt an alternative perspective for narrative poetry. They are very much different from the poets of Chaucerian, Elizabethan or romantic age in the matter to narrate their verse and somewhat similar to the poets of Imagist School of the Modern Age. The example cited below would support the statement;
A black man waiting at a bus stop
A white woman sitting on a stool
A Filipino eating a potato
A Mexican boy putting on shoes
A Hindu hiding in igloo
A fat girl in blue blouse
A Christian lady with toupee
A Chinese mother walking across a bridge
An Afghanistani eating pastrami
A provincial walking on the peninsula
A Eurasian boy on a cell phone
An Arab with umbrella… (Bernstein 250)
The above-mentioned example by him offers a different insight of Language poetry where each line itself narrates a story, though fragmented and unfinished one. But the difficulty is, readers have no sources to complete the story like, A black man waiting at a bus stop, but then what? What he is waiting for? Does he have some reasons behind waiting or he is waiting for Godot? Readers have to check all the possibilities to drag the story to a certain end and that is quite a lengthy task. Besides, it’s not easy to give an imaginative end to a story that has been started by someone else. Another reason for Language poetry for being non-narrative is, any narration needs a subject to be expressed, a theme to be elaborated and Language poetry is far beyond having any of these boundaries (as Language poets consider them boundary). Language poetry simply can’t be stuck to any single subject or idea around which a story or narration can take place. Language poets have always been interested in working multiple thoughts simultaneously but all of them are either unfinished or fragmented altogether. They write as if a child collects some random objects to play.
Free from figures of speech
Figures of speech are used to add decoration to the language. Aristotle insists on its ‘embellishment of artistic content’ while defining tragedy. Figures of speech help readers to go beyond the literal meaning of a given word or sentence. But as the language poets claim that they serve the language in its purest form, language poetry prefers to avoid the figures of speech. Language poetry wants readers to find their own meaning out of the text rather than the intended meaning without any ornamental distractions. To execute this strategy, Language poets sometimes go to that extent in their determination not to use figures of speech that they have served only nouns or verbs in order to serve the purest form of language and to avoid any ornamentation. Following is the example;
Body perception thought of perceiving (half-thought
chaotic architect repudiate line Q confine lie link realm
circle a Euclidean curtail theme theme toll function coda
severity whey crayon so distant grain scalp gnat carol
omen Cur cornice zed primitive shad sac stone fur bray
tub epoch too fum alter rude recess emblem sixty key
Epithets young in a box told as you fly (Howe 13)
Be it strange metaphors in Metaphysical poetry, similes, and personifications in Shakespearean poetry, hyperbole used by romantic poets, since the ages, figures of speech have been practiced by various authors in their text to make poetry rich in its texture. But as Language poetry claims to break the conventional notion of writing poetry, it is likely to avoid all such devices in practice. Their intention in avoiding figures of speech in their craft is quite visible as they want to make readers free to create the meaning out of the text. They rather aim to make it limitless where the reader can take any word from the text and think about it without looking at the context. One can stretch the word to the very extent he likes to do as there is literally nothing to look back and forth. Take the above-mentioned piece by Howe as an example. Each word carries its own worth and is nowhere connected to the word previous or next. ‘chaotic’ can be taken as an adjective for any situation or circumstances or even can be taken as an independent noun (Language poets never mind). Same as, ‘architect’ can represent itself an independent noun (can be stood for a person) or if the reader chooses, can be linked with the previous adjective or it can be verb also (can be stood for an idea or design). In that manner, ‘chaotic architect repudiate line Q…’ could be a complete line or some words that are grouped together if one minds the double space. And each time, as the word changes its ownership, it changes its meaning.
Obscure style of writing
Although, Language poets are not the first ones to write verses in obscure style. Back in Renaissance age, Metaphysical poets, especially George Herbert could be seen writing his poems in obscure style (Ex. The Altar, Easter Wings). W. B. Yeats, Gertrude Stein, Pound have also practiced obscurity in their verses. But among all, Language poetry scores highest in the visual pattern of writing. The majority of the verses have been written unconventionally following the unusual sentence pattern. Language poets are used to writing in irregular font and script. And they are so much used to this that obscurity has become almost the synonym for Language poetry. It’s fun to comment that the faculty who suffered a lot of language poetry is but of typewriters. As Hofer comments on Language poets’ obscure style of writing: ‘Typewriters were predictably important to the Language poets, perhaps most so to Bernstein, who not infrequently writes metacritically about the process of writing on a particular typewriter or even with a particular font (7). Many of the Language poetry has been written in an irregular pattern of writing disregarding the punctuations, margins, space, and formation of the page. Language poets are also famous for writing in a manner that is almost impossible to even read (to get it would be a second thing). Some poems do not carry punctuations and space, and those that are carrying are doing it most awkwardly. They have written several poems literally consisting of overlapping sentences. Some of them are containing words between the lines (so the reader has to literally read between the lines). At first glance, a reader mistakes it as if something went wrong with the printer or page while printing-process but then he realizes that he has mistakenly taken it as a mistake. There isn’t any rule of starting the sentence from the left margin. It can be started from anywhere providing no compulsion of reading it from the start and can be stopped anywhere. In that manner, Language poets should be declared the most humanistic entity in literature who allow readers their own will (of starting to read (or not to) from anywhere) to follow. ‘Can’t’ is ‘Night’ by Scalapino would elucidate:
the breaking of reason
is silent seeing movement (of one’s)
language
since these ‘re in utter isolation only, that is
everyone
is
as language as social/ and dawn.
their despair is one’s physical movement (not). (217)
Now, considering the humanistic approach, the reader is free to start from ‘the breaking of reason’ or from ‘movement (of one’s), or even from since these ‘re in utter isolation only,’. He can read it as ‘the breaking of reason is silent seeing movement (of one’s) language’ or as ‘the breaking of reason is silent seeing language since these ‘re in utter isolation only,’ or as ‘movement (of one’s) is as social/ and dawn.’ Or as ‘since these ‘re in utter isolation only, that is everyone as language their despair is one’s physical movement (not).’ He can do so because it is intended to do so. Language writing is a big plate served with multi-cuisine food including various dips and chutneys and sauces and gravies. One can start with rice and tomato gravy, or with pasta and white sauce, or with salad and tahini dip, or with pakora and tamarind chutney. One can even start with pakora and white sauce, or with salad and tomato gravy, or with pasta and tahini dip, or with rice and tamarind chutney. Neither way of starting is wrong in a manner of consuming, instead, each way would provide a different taste (no matter the taste is scrutable or not).
Disregarding the punctuations and space and margin and font and script, Language poetry is obscurely repetitive, particularly prose poetry. A word, a phrase, a sentence, and sometimes even a paragraph can be seen repeated. Sparing the mistake of taking it as Language poets’ lack of variety of words or uniqueness of craft, repetition is a deliberate choice. Ketjak by Silliman is 99 pages long poem written in prose which carries repetition of the first sentence (consisting only two words) with the addition of new sentences in every next paragraph along with the previous paragraph as it is;
“Revolving door.
Revolving door. A sequence of objects which to him appears to be a caravan of fellaheen, a circus, begins a slow migration to the right vanishing point on the horizon line.
Revolving door. Fountains of the financial district. Houseboats beached at the point of low tide, only to float again when the sunset is reflected in the water. A sequence of objects which to him appears to be a caravan of fellaheen, a circus, camels pulling wagons of bear cages, tamed ostriches in toy hats, begins a slow migration to the right vanishing point on the horizon line.” (Silliman 3)
At a glance, it seems a childish craft where a child learns some words and keeps repeating it by adding some new words to it. The question arises here is, does this repetition mean anything worth or it is there to fill some empty paragraphs? One can take it as a figure of speech where certain phrase repeats itself at the beginning of the stanza, here paragraph.
Highly vague
Since its emergence, Language poetry has been accused of being highly vague to readers. In order to be different from the trend, Language poetry has been written so vaguely that an ordinary reader cannot look at it. Moreover, as all the above-mentioned characteristics suggest, Language poetry doesn’t use any syntax or rhetoric through which the meaning can be formed and it can be easy to understand. Neither Language poets use any punctuation, nor do they provide any reference or context - historical support for the work which makes poetry utterly inscrutable to the reader. The reader is lost in finding the connection of one line to another as the poetry usually lacks coherence. He has to try very hard to come upon any conclusion regarding what is this piece of poetry about. He feels suffocated while going through the text. He craves for the meaning in the way a coma patient craves for oxygen. Even the prose-poetry written by Language poets is as vague as their verses. Following is an example;
“I’ve spent the years since. Primarily rowing. I’ll phone. Next week after the tube roses are installed. Vivid memories. People remain. I have occasionally. Shops, sorting out how to become useful. A prolonged bout. Interest in useful plants. Aside from, a couple of trips, I do what I must. This is a pleasure. Exactly two weeks but more like. When she spoke. Two years to me. Patiently listen. I’d come up&out with. Anguish. I’m very well, thank you, not at all, you’ll take a bath. Thucydides or Livy just get up the. Fact, you’ve been gone, is already repainted.” (Bernstein 49)
This doesn’t seem a paragraph. It’s more like some sentences that have no connection with each other have grouped together. Every sentence is individual in itself. But the question then arises in the mind of the reader is, if so, then why the poet has grouped them together instead of writing them separately? This sort of practice creates an enigma for readers. Many a time they write their poetry with the simple use of words and context but they write in such a manner that it becomes vague to readers;
1 “I hate that you blame me For
2 the things I do wrong” A pear
3 would go to heaven As easily as
4 a blade of grass Would sing your
5 song. But the notice, she is given
6 The Sway outlasts the throng In the
7 nabbing there’s More to pay Than circuits
8 in a barn. You know that time,
9 years ago If chance allots recall, The
10 bluff fell down You fussed, I frowned… (Bernstein 236)
The use of numerical has nothing to do with the use of alphabets. They are there, seemingly, just to make it complex in the mind of the reader when he casts a glance on it and forces his brain to solve the mystery of the connection between numerical and alphabets. Moreover, untimely capitalization fulfills the lacuna of making it perfectly vague. Following is one more example to support the argument.
iz wurry ray aZoOt de puund in reducey ap crrRisLe ehk nugkinj
sJuxYY senshl. ig si heh hahpae uvd r fahbeh aht si gidrid. impOg
qwbk tuUg. jr’ghtpihqw. ray aGh nunCe ip gvvn EapdEh a’ gum
riff a’ eppehone. Ig ew oplep lucd nvn atik o im. ellek Emb ith ott
enghip ag ossp heh ooz. ig confri wid suGan fagt iv ig muhhrei elle … (Bernstein 34)
First of all, after casting a glance over the piece, the first confusion arises in the mind of the reader is, in which language (script) it is written. No matter the alphabets sound familiar, the words or whatever it is that seems like words are far different from the words of the English dictionary. Though, written in English script, it is almost impossible to read the poem.
Writerly
Language poets demand the reader’s involvement more than of the author. They believe that language poetry meant to be interpreted by readers. They follow what Barthes stated that no longer the focus of creative influence, the author is merely a ‘scriptor’. The scriptor exists to produce but not to explain the work and is born simultaneously with the text, is in no way equipped with a being preceding or exceeding the writing (and) is not the subject with the book as the predicate. Now the problem starts from here. In a constant desire to be different from the trend, language poetry has been so radical that it is almost impossible for readers to get any subtle meaning. Although the very poetry has its charm and beauty in its uniqueness, in a constant desire to get readers’ more intellectual adherence to poetry, Language poets became introvert. They wanted readers to get their own meaning from the text as Language Poetry rejects the idea of poetry as an oral form; it is written and the medium is the message but what if the text is more than enough avant-garde for readers to get any? Now, as language poetry claims that it is writerly text and the medium is the message, then what is the message which the reader is supposed to get from the verses which he can’t even interpret? Take Code Poetry by Hannah Weiner. It is too absurd to be decoded. There is nothing like meaning or message, and if it fails to convey any message then what is the meaning of this radicality or avant-gardism? Meaning can indeed be forgotten, but only if we have chosen to bring to bear upon the text singular scrutiny and what Barthes states, that, the interpretation demanded by a specific text, in its plurality, is in no way liberal: it is not a question of conceding some meanings, of magnanimously acknowledging that each one has its share of truth; it is a question, against all in-difference, of asserting the very existence of plurality, which is not that of the true, the probable, or even the possible (6). Language poetry is stuck somewhere between the singularity and plurality of the text.
Since the very beginning, one of the aims of language poets was to make readers take active participation in the production of meaning. Language poets created a labyrinth of the meaning through words and set themselves free from providing any of the clues to their readers. Chicago poet Timothy Yu discussed the exact scene in one of his articles, “Although the device of language poetry is meant to be “self-interpreting”, Language poets have generated an enormous amount of critical writing that seeks to guide and control the interpretation of their work.” (Timothy Yu 432) It was like as David Melnick said in his article for the first issue of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, ‘A Short Word on my Work’:
“The poems are made of what looks like words and phrases but are not. I think these poems look like they should mean something more than other wordless poems do. At the same time, you know that you can’t begin to understand what they mean. What can such poems do for you? You are a spider strangling in your own web, suffocated by meaning. You ask to be freed by these poems from the intolerable burden of trying to understand.” (13)
Language poetry is vaguer among all the contemporary and previous schools of poetry like ‘Imagist poets’, ‘Dada Movements’, ‘Beat Poetry’, ‘Confessionalist poets’ and even ‘New York School of Poetry’ or ‘Black Mountain Poets’. Some of them were even the vehicle of avant-garde yet the height achieved by language poetry was unsurpassable for fellow schools of poetry. As Michel Cuddihy- the editor of Ironwood journal commented in his 1982 issue: “There has been growing evidence of disenchantment with the bulk of mainstream American poetry, most of it “free verse”… For others, particularly those dubbed “language writers”, the alternative is more radical. They see the language and language habits poets inherit as hindrances to perception and feeling, but even more, to the precise expression of these.” Eyes and minds of the reader are not used to digest such unconventional thoughts presented in a very uncommon way, for language poets believed in serving the language in its purest form without any ornamentation of form, style or devices. What language poets were serving was not by any means traditional and people don’t find comfort where there is no tradition.
Conclusion
In short Language poetry is everything that is not conventional. It breaks so away from the tradition that sometimes it’s difficult to identify it as poetry. To get any meaning is a fundamental expectation of any reader and when they fail to get it, the piece of work turns into insurmountable dissatisfaction. This is the key hindrance while going through the avant-garde literature that makes readers feel enigma about the given text. But it is not that this enigma cannot be surpassed. Avant-garde literature is highly experimental and radical and that’s why it demands an unconventional perception to be decoded. It does not entertain any conformity to set standards and that is why readers who are used to read mainstream poetry do not get along so well with avant-garde literature. They have to suffer a lot to get into the text. Moreover, avant-garde literature does not project its meaning to the reader rather it forces them to create their own. In that case, those who are able to play a creative game can win the game. No matter, the experimental literature is difficult, but one can go along with the hope of exploring a completely new dimension.
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