Aesthetic Tendency and the Politics of Poetry: A Manifesto

Author(s): Ron Silliman, Carla Harryman, Lyn Hejinian, Steve Benson, Bob Perelman and
Barrett Watten
Source: Social Text, No. 19/20 (Autumn, 1988), pp. 261-275
Published by: Duke University Press
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AestheticTendencyAnd The Politics Of Poetry:
A Manifesto
RON SILLIMAN, CARLA HARRYMAN, LYN HEJINIAN,
STEVE BENSON, BOB PERELMAN, BARRETT WATTEN

For anyonefollowingAmericanpoetryover the last decade,it is evidentthat

therehas been an intenseand contradictory response-fromenthusiasmand
imitationto dismissaland distortion-toour work."Our work,"in thisinstance,
is partof a bodyof writing, predominantly poetry,in whatmightbe calledthe
or
experimental avant-garde Its
tradition. history,whilenot nearlyas canonized
as theearlierexample,say,of Surrealism, has beengenerally acknowledged along
these lines: around 1970, a numberof writers,followingthe workof such
experimenters as GertrudeSteinand Louis Zukofsky, beganwritingin waysthat
questioned the norms of persona-centered,"expressive" poetry.(In termsof its
reception,"our work" can mean the of
writing up to several dozen writers who
have been identified as partof an aesthetictendency whose definitionis not a
matterof doctrinebut of overlapping Here, westandsfora consensus
affinities.
arrivedat forthepurposesof thisarticleamongsix of itsmembers on theWest
Coast.) Having come into contactwith each other,many of thesewritersmoved
to New Yorkor San Francisco,whereincreasedinteraction through the seventies
and eightiesled to books(a collectivebibliography of around300 titlesto date),
magazines,readingseries,talksbypoetsaboutwriting, andperiodiccollaborative
projectsincludingperformance work and Poets Theater in San Francisco.For
thesewriters,the interaction withothers-primarily outsidethe universities-
was excitingand affected theworkof all.
In the recenthistoryof the artsthishas not been an unusualnarrative.
Developmentsof such collectiveactivityhave characterized the historyof the
avant-garde, including our own-recent examplesbeing theBlack Mountain,San
FranciscoRenaissance,and New Yorkschools poetry.Resistance,too, has
of
beencharacteristic of theresponseto theavant-gardes, butthedegreeof phobia
has beenmarkedly greater toward new developments writingthanto thosein
in
theotherarts.Whilethefirst-generation modernist paintersat thebeginningof
thiscentury did set off offending shock waves,clearlythe multi-story towerof
theMuseumof ModernArtis evidenceof a certainsuccess.More recentschools
in the visual arts have been met with a more tolerantresponse-from benign

261

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262 Silliman, Hejinian,Benson,
Harryman, Watten
Perelman,

patronageby the gallerysystemto instantincorporationin institutionalframes.

If it's true that therearc manyserious artistswho have vet to be touched by the
magic want of institutionalacceptance, at least those in the visual arts have
grounds to contest their exclusion. This institutionalization of the avant-garde
has been pointed out in such works as Rosalind Krauss's On the Originalityof
the Avant-Gardeand Other ModernistMythsand Peter Burger's Theoryof the
Avant-Garde,and the notion of an "avant-gardetradition"itselfis at this point
an embarrassment to manyin the avant-gardc.Certainlythe path of abstractand
post-abstractpainters,sculptors,video artiststhroughthe galleriesand museums
is no surpriseto anyone.
The institutionaland public responseto the contemporary Americanliterary
avant-garde, however, has been otherwise.The narrowness and provincialismof
mainstreamliterarynorms have been maintainedover the last twentyyears in a
stultifyingly steady state in which the personal,"cxpressive"lyrichas been held
up as the canonical poetic form. On analogy to the visual arts, where the
"avant-garde"is feltto be a virtualcommonplace,the situationof poetryis as if
the entire historyof radical modcrnism-Joycc,Pound, and Williams notwith-
standing-had been replaced by a league of suburban landscape painters.The
elevationof the lyricof fetishizcdpersonal"experience"into a canon of tastehas
been ubiquitous and unqucstioncd-lcaving those writingin otherformsand to
other ends operatingin a no-man's-landin termsof wider criticalacknowledge-
mentand public support.
The dynamicsof this antagonismbetween the status quo and work that
does not share the canonical norm is revealing.While our work-at least some
part of the aforementioned300 volumes, and particularlyas representedin the
recent anthologies In the American Tree (cd. Ron Silliman) and "Language"
Poetries (cd. Douglas Mcsscrli) and in collections of critical work such as
Writing/Talks (cd. Bob Perelman), The L =A -N=G= U=A = G=-E Book (cd.
Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein),and BarrettWattcn'sTotal Syntax-has
often received serious and useful critical attentionfrom some sectors of the
literaryworld, its entryinto a largerpublic spherehas been characterizedby an
incoherent invcctive-hystericand even phobic reactions that recall Norman
Podhoretz's blast at the Beats, published in Commentary in the late fifties.And
if this form of negative advertisingto put off potentiallyinterestedreaders
weren'tenough, there'sbeen a minorrevivalof the "spectreof Communism"in
red-baitingarticlessuch as one last year in The New Criterionin which the use
of the word Stalin in one of our poems sufficedto uncoveran apparentnest of
literaryReds in San Francisco and thus to raise a flagto the New Right. This is
simplyan actingout of trashitas(Lacan's usefultermforintcrsubjective nihilism)
for a readershipin the arts; the stakes here are more consequential,as anyone

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ThePolitics A Manifesto
ofPoetry: 263

aware of the uses of such political rhetoricsince McCarthyknows: if would-be

rock-lyriccensor Paula Hawkins had not been defeatedfor senator in Florida,
eventuallycontemporarypoetrymay have matteredeven to her. These reactions
of the new rightattestto a hysteriathat is part of the dominantliterarycode;
in a larger sense, a delimitationof the aestheticallypossible that has political
implications-in the exclusionof differencefromnormativeformsof communica-
tion and action.
Certainlyone of the nightmaresof our more phobic criticshas been that
our work denies the centralityof the individualartist.Afterall, isn't it written
without a stable authorialcenteror perceptiblenarrative"voice," in an anony-
mous, collectiveenvironment?The individualis seen as under attack,and this is
largelytrue: the self as the centraland finalterm of creativepracticeis being
challengedand exploded in our writingin a numberof ways. What we mean by
the self encompasses many things,but among these is a narrativepersona, the
fictiveperson (even in autobiography) who speaks in his or her poem about
experienceraised to a suitablyaestheticizedsurface.This kind of self is readily
recognizable in countless examples that bubble up fromcreativewritingwork-
shops-brief narrativeswith moralizingcodas in shortpoems of medium-length
lines, sometimes in regular stanzaic patternsbut often in free verse without
rhyme, the canonical mode of poetry today. Moreover, it is not just any
experiencebut a certainkindof experiencethat is valorized as appropriateto the
"workshopeffect."Rae Armantrout,reviewinga typicalrecentanthologyof such
versc1"MainstreamMarginality,"writes:
Dave Smithand David Bottoms, theeditorsof theMorrow
AnthologyofYounger
American Poets,includein theirforward of theyounger,
a compositeportrait
Americanpoet. Theywritethat"he is rarelya card-carrying groupmember,
politicalor aesthetic."In thisforewordSmithand Bottoms,typicalyounger
Americanpoets in this regard,revealnone of the aestheticcriteriaaround
whichtheyhaveshapedthisbook.

What is obscure in Smith and Bottoms' theory is abundantly clear in

practice,however. In his introductionto this volume,AnthonyHecht is able to
draw conclusions about this generationof poets: "Their poems are not offered
as the adornmentsof by-productsof colorfulor eccentricpersonal lives . ... In
his poems the youngerpoet tends to be himself,an inventedversionof himself."
In looking at the actual work,however,Armantroutnotes a pervasiveconsistency
thatresultsin a levelingof "experience"to restated,commonplacethemes:

Lookingcloser,say comparingopeningstanzas,one sees,againand again,a

in some
discursiveapproachwhich places the writerphysically
narrative,

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264 Silliman, Hejinian,Benson,
Harryman, Watten
Perelman,

particularsetting,often,thoughnot always,rustic,and beingsto relateone

(complexity is not favored)particular
experience ... Thus we see thatthe
"typical
younger American poet"is outdoorsin an "abandoned" location,doing
physicallabor with a sharpimplement. Both isolation and sharpimplements
seemassociatedin the"typical"American mindwitha certain glamor.Perhaps
thatis whatlendsthesepoemstheirtonesof authority and solemnity .
For methereis an oppressive machismo inherentin all this.

If such poets avoid "card-carrying"explicitaesthetics,it maybe because they

provide an ideology of no ideology,a plausible denial of intentionin theirwork.
However, it's easy to read intentionsin such a project. In these examples,the
maintenanceof a marginal,isolated individualismis posited as an heroic and
transcendentproject. Experience is digested for its moral content and then
dramatized and framed; at the same time, the transcendentmoment dissolves
back into the sentimentaland banal, maintainingthe purityof the poem by
excludingexplicitagendas. This kind of worked-overaccountingof "experience,"
we think,is primarilyresponsiblefor the widespreadcontemporaryreceptionof
poetryas nice but irrelevant.If thisis what countsas significantwriting,literature
has completelyignored developmentsand insightsaccessible in other arts over
the last seventy-fiveyears.
Here particularkind of self is used as the vehiclefor an aestheticproject
a
in which the specificsof experience dissolve into the pscudo-intimacyof an
overarching authorial "voice." It's worth noting that this kind of self, the
dominantone in Americanverse practice,fallsfarshortof Whitman'sopenness
of self(which strikesus as much closerto a real selfand its processes).In a recent
article2,Lee Bartlettruns down some of the possibilitiesof the workshopself
in its associationwith the wordI:

I havewatched
Everywhere
The unregarded
Holdingout
Theiremptytinsof justice.

HowardMoss

I learnedto typeninetywordsa minute.

I quit the band because I wasn't stupid.
At concertsno one sat withme.

Laurie Henry

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ThePolitics A Manifesto
ofPoetry: 265

Bartlettfindsthese geneticallyrelatedto earlyexamplesof the confessionalvoice

poem, forwhich William Stafford'sfamousline "I thoughthard forus all" might
stand as a prime example. In these versions, authorial "voice" lapses into
melodramain a social allegorywherethe authoris precludedfromeffective action
by his or her veryemotions.
Bartlett misses an opportunity,however, to complete his argument by
counteringthese banalitieswith examplesfromthe writerswhose workhe would
defend:

I enjoybeingslavishforin thiswayI concealmydeep suspicions.I enjoyall

the rolesI play.Whenthemayor handsme a of
dollop praise I heckle.I turn
on peoplewhentheycompromise themselves
in frontof me.My reasonis that
I am a hermaphrodite.
Thatis, myreasonactshermaphroditically.
I am normal
physically.

Carla Harrman

The othersays:I haveno method.

I merely
undressin powerfulmoonlight
thewretched
delighting few
andplungein and drowneachtime.

I say:I turnto Dallas,to baseball,to Prince,

Sushi,fractals
-note theintrusive planeofexplanation
tiedup finallyin somediplomatic pouchof
noncombatant pro-life
pro-choicepre-ontology
movie-like stasis-I mean
a person,in quotes,on earth,quotes
sitedin theaporiaoftoiletpaperin Nicaragua
ofjobs in Youngstown, ifyoudon'talreadyownthe
shopping centerthen go shopping...

BobPerelman

WhatI wantedto saywas,I walkup to a blockofwood,

and,coveredwithdust,it exaggeratesa smallparkinto
a thousandfeatures.
Fictitious
powermonger tenderly
disguisedas conventional
boylickslipsin mirror.

SteveBenson

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266 Silliman, Watten
Perelman,
Hejinian,Benson,
Harryman,

There is a possibility,an openness to the implications of experience,

associatedwith theI here thatis more generativeof insightthanthe transcendent
elevation of carefullyscripted incidents. Coleridge, writingin the Biographia
Literaria,similarlyargues fora dissociationof what he calls the egocontemplans-
the I that thinks-fromthe ego contemplatus-theI thatis the object of thought.
This refusalto identifythe I as agent with the horizon of the "I," and thus with
easily perceived moral categories,elicited a symptomatically negative response
fromColeridge's readers.These readersforColeridge "have a distinctsense of the
connectionbetweentwo conceptions[e.g., theI and the"I"] withoutthesensation
of such connection which is supplied by habit," and it makes them mad. Here
Coleridge attemptsto describe a poetic intentionality that opposes itselfto the
elision of consciousness that occurs in habitual constructionsof belief. It's not
difficultto arrive,from this understandingof the self as a criticallynecessary
project,at the possibilityof a dissociatedselfas a critique.
This is oftenwhat the use of the I in our work has involved-to propose,
in the inherenttermsof the work, that sense of a connectionbetween discrete
conceptionswhich has been habituallyeffacedfromthe processesof thoughtand
language and to rechargethis neurologicalscar tissue with some new synapses.
This possibilitywas distinctlyprefiguredin the work of Robert Creeley when
he observed: "As soon as/I speak, I/speaks. It//wantsto/be free but/impassive
lies//inthe direction/ofits/words"CollectedPoems (Berkeley,1984: 294). This
sense of the I allows Creeley's criticalspiritof Coleridge ratherthan the simply
"open" one of Whitman, to write: "Poems are not referential,at least not
importantlyso".3 This ambiguous use of the word I in even a poet as
self-identifiedas Creeley led the way for manyof those who read him carefully
to a poetics that has more at stake than simplythe persona. The question of
referenceis opened by the critique of the self to processes where the self is
simplynot the finalterm.
An openness of selfin the presentfindslanguage not as simplytransparent
and instrumentalbut as a necessityof the world at large-an obstacle as well as
an advantage. It would be as much philosophicalnonsense,however,to say that
language precedesthe world as it would be to say (as Wittgensteinso thoroughly
deconstructed)that the world precedeslanguage. Enter the second obsession of
the criticsof our work: the use of a language thatis not immediatelyidentifiable
as speech. Somehow our concern for one of the definingcharacteristicsof
literature,that it is writtenin words, has been misread as advocating a prior
textualitythroughwhich the poet avoids directcontactwith,again, "experience."
Justas it's been usefulto considerwhattheI meansin contemporary "exprcssivist"
poetry,it is likewise instructiveto examineits versionof speech. In such work,
a compacted persona speaks a kind of metaphorizedtestimonialto the validity

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ThePolitics A Manifesto
ofPoetry: 267

of one's life and moral choices. It is as if a distantjudge were being appealed to

in modest tones intended to argue one's case in a voice just loud enough to be
overheard.Proprietyis the rule.
Speech, however, is a much wider field than its more narrowlyliterary
representation,even in such a consummateartistof spoken values as William
Carlos Williams. Williams's interestin Americanspeech patternswas a reaction
to the typicalmetricalversifyingof his time as much as an enthusiasmfor the
possibilitiesof speech. What he actuallywrote, however,is still greatlystylized
and quite farfromsuch examplesof speech as the transcriptions of JackKerouac's
Visionsof Cody or Ed Friedman's The TelephoneBook. Even "speech" on the 6
o'clock news is a rewrittenidiom in which, for one thing, the redundancies,
hedges, and space fillersof real speech have been completelyleft out. Speech
values in poetryare quite farfrom"real" speech, an exampleof which mightbe:

This is aboutthemostabnormalpartyI've everbeento. I justcan'tconceive

of anypartyI've beento thatwe'vesataroundandtalkedlikethis.
It's eitherpoliticaldiscussionor word meaningsor somethingnot just
frivolous.You knowsomeonewillsaya sentenceand all of a suddenwe'llsay
wellthatworddoesn'tmeanthat.You know.And we'llgo on forhoursover
howto pronouncethewordor whatthewordmeansand.4

It's not as if William's example of Americanidiom has been forgottenbut

that the distortions of contemporary"unreal" speech (as it is encountered
particularlyin public) have necessitatedmore radicalidioms in response.To look
at a poem like William's

MY LUV

My luv
is like
a
greenglass
insulator
on
a bluesky.5

is not to see speech alone but likewise to delight in the obliqueness of such
and "on/a blue sky."
visuallyconcretephrasesas "my luv," "greenglass/insulator,"
This is equally writing(with its emphases on the physicalityof words and their
intertextuality)and speech, and it compares with the later and more radical
exampleof Clark Coolidge's

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268 Silliman, Hejinian,Benson,
Harryman, Watten
Perelman,

timecoal humbase
treatsouthadmit
low thedissolveadd
owl

fromhis early,ground-breakingwork Space (1970). As in the William's poem,

writtenand spoken values of Coolidge's words intersect,giving not speech as
heard fromthe mouth of Ted Koppel or even Pee Wee Herman but a displayof
the tonal values of English one-and-twosyllablewords. What a readerwill hear
or read in such a poem, however,is not just sound values but the transformation
of speech by writing. In order to lay bare language's inherentcapacity to
constructbelief,it is necessaryat timesto disruptits conventionas communica-
tive transparency.Writingtransforms speech toward these ends; this has been a
fundamentalconstructiveprincipleof our work.
Beginning with Stein and Zukofsky,and significantly reinforcedby the
examples of the abstract poems of Frank O'Hara and John Ashberyand the
aleatoricaltextsof JacksonMacLow in the fifties, therehas been a continuityof
experimental work that foregrounds its status as writtenlanguage. Partly by
virtueof its contributionto a critiqueof the self,this kind of writingbecame in
the seventiesand eighties a way to extendpoetryinto areas that had previously
been closed to it. This developmentof experimentaltechniquetook place at the
same time as the historic explosion of interestin language and linguistics
resultingfromthe workof such authorsas Barthesand Kristeva.In no sense did
theory precede the work; the early literarymagazines of our movementwere
almost entirelyconcernedwith publishingpoems. It was only with the publica-
tions of the collaborative poem Legend (1978), the magazine
L =A =N= G= U=A = G=E (ed. Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernsteinfrom
1978), and the transcriptsof some of the early talks in Hills/Talks(1978) that
theorybegan to take its place alongside poetryas a matterof real concern.The
cognitive,and later social, uses of our practicehad begun to be apparent,and
this was corroborated by contemporarydevelopmentsin theory. Likewise it
became clear that theoreticalmodels based on language might find a uniquely
properobject in poetry.The developmentsof theoryand poetic practiceappeared
to be complementary,and there seemed to be much to be learned from the
relation between the two. That inquiry is still open, though it would be
inaccurateto say that all experimentalpoets have found support for theirwork
in theory.
So why have some poets become interestedin theory?Isn't it enough to
stay home and have experiencesthat are then writtenup with measureddoses
of poetic craft?For over two milleniapoets have had explicittheoreticalinterests,

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ThePolitics A Manifesto
ofPoetry: 269

and many of these have gone quite far beyond simple mattersof technique,
rhetoric,and style.Cosmogonies such as Hesiod's Worksand Days and Lucretius'
On the Nature of Things are explicitytheoretical,and poetrysince at least the
Classical period has addressed the nature of the State. Since the Romantics
language and psychology (not to mention religion) have been fundamentally
implicatedin poetics, and in the Modern period the necessityof such relations
was focusedby virtueof a skepticismabout knowledgeand experiencethatfound
its object in the self-sufficientword. If there is a postmoderncontributionto
such a progressionin the arts, it has been to break down boundaries between
theoryand practice,experienceand the work. It is sufficientto note that the
"theoretical"implicationsof each of these periods are chargedwith motivesthat
do not end only in the aesthetic.
If a wider, more inclusiveaddress in the poem has been a centralconcern
of our poetics, this openness to the world has taken place at a point where
languageoccurs as a "not-I" that,by definition,is beyondthe poet: Rimbaud's"Je
est un autre." In its concerns for intcrsubjcctivity, for language, and for the
structureof the self prior to the selfs knowledgeof it, currenttheoryaddresses
manyquestions of writingunderstoodin this sense. For us, theory,like writing,
is speculativeand dynamicas opposed to institutionalor normative.In our use
of it, we would emphasize the prospectiveand question the dogmatic,looking
foroptions and constructivepotentialsratherthan closure or limits.We propose
not a "purc" language but a "contaminated"one., testingthe relationsamong its
constituentelementsand forms,fromwhich we do not exclude theory.This is
as much as to say that our writinghas committedus to morethan we know;to
admittheoryinto our practiceis to imaginewhat is yetto be written.
More specifically,the conjunction of linguistics, psychoanalysis,post-
analyticphilosophy and social theoryin the last fifteenyears has led to what
Thomas Kuhn would call a "paradigmshift"in both the humanitiesand the arts.
Theoryin this sense has alteredthe receptionof the poem by changingthe notion
of what literatureis, specificallydisputingthe claimsthatsupportedthe previous
canon by calling into question its narrow world view. In the case of the
"cxpressivist"personal lyric discussed above, it's the scenario of disinterested
criticalevaluation reinforcingthe alleged moral autonomyof the poem (afterthe
work of Eliot and the New Critics) that has sufferedmost in the face of these
new concerns.At the same time,theoryhas opened up a speculativevocabulary
thatpermitscriticaldiscussionof the worktowardotherends thanquasi-religious
communion. It has connected writing with broader realms of intellectual
discourse and has staked out a space for creativewritersas equals with serious
thinkersin other areas-to the advantage of the poet. Writersof an earlier
generationsuch as Charles Olson, Louis Zukofsky,and Laura Riding were, we

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270 Silliman, Watten
Perelman,
Hejinian,Benson,
Harryman,

think,among the foremosttheoristsof theirtime. Our interestin recenttheory

is an extensionof thatsame refusalto separatecriticalfromcreativepractice.
In particular,the concern with theoryhas drawn our work outward from
the aestheticsof the "self-sufficient
world" to more explicitlysocial and political
issues. Starting with the Ron Silliman's essay "Disappearance of the Word,
Appearance of the World" (1976) and with the "Politics of the Referent"
symposiumin Open Letteredited by Steve McCaffery(1977), our engagement
with theoryat firstlooked for analogies between the structureof language and
social reality.This was contemporaneouswith the receptionof such European
Marxistsas Poulantzcs,Althusserand Machcrcy,with the revivalof the workof
Benjamin and the FrankfurtSchool, with increasinginterestin the Russian
Formalistsand French Structuralists(particularlythroughFredricJameson'sThe
Prison-Houseof Language), with developments in post-generativecognitive
linguistics(the work of BerkeleylinguistsCharles Fillmoreand George Lakoff),
and withthe firstimpactof deconstructionand Frenchfeminism.Anyonefamiliar
with these issues will recognizethat these influencesdo not, as yet,add up to a
single, stable position. Rather it's been one task of contemporarypoetics to
exploretheirimplicationsin the practiceof an art.
What does thistheorylook like in practice?As one example,Bruce Andrews
wrote in the Open Lettersymposium:

Language-centeredwork resemblesan activemyth-making. It resemblesa

creationof a communityand of a world-viewby once-divided-but-now-fused
It is immanent,
Readerand Writer.This creationis not instrumental. in plain
sight(and plainsong),movingalong a with
surface all the complicationsof a
charteror a town-meeting.6

Clearly utopian, like much poetry,this kind of theoryaspires to a poetics that

ends not in a textbut in the implicationof thattextforthe world,the everyday
lives of real people. At the same time,the "materialsign" is feltto be centralto
such a possibility.The value of this notion of language as materialhas not
remainedfixed,however,and it is of interestnow to look back at the development
of the idea in the theoreticalwritingsof our movementas well as in Andrcws's
work. Certainlythe utopian dimensionof the "materialsign" has come under a
greatdeal of criticismin thisgroup, but its residuecontinuesto have implications
for practice.In his most recentbook, one misses the utopian covenantbetween
Reader and Writerbut not the alienationof materialpracticethatproduced:

Hitsville!-WellI'm not exposedenough,no matterhow vainyouare-As if

weddingtalkanarchiccakesin thehometurnsto rebels,go outsideandvomit,

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ThePolitics A Manifesto
ofPoetry: 271

torporliftsoverworking
classPavlov'sdog
Failureto acknowledge
seemslikea naturalfact.7

The opposite of utopia, plus ten years,would seem hereto be total estrangement.
What Andrews has learned fromthis project, as hard as it may be to take, is
virtuallyconstitutiveof contemporarypublic space: "Failure to acknowledge
seems like a natural fact." Here is a debunkingof the transparencyof admini-
stered communication,not in a discursivework along the lines of Marcuse or
Adorno, but at the very sight or utteranceof these words. By extensionone
finds that this language, and much that is like it, exists everywherein the
world-but do we see it acknowledged?There is a kind of social unconscious,
of what cannot be admittedas a primaryperceptionof the realityof American
life, behind the cleaned-up and marketableproducts of much art. Andrews's
writingreturnsus to an importantaspect of the real, one that would not have
come into poetry without the risks posed by theory-and it isn't necessarily
pretty.But it is significant,and here we are acknowledgingit, as a duality of
alienatedpublic and interestedcommunitythatparticularly concernsus.
If therehas been one premiseof our group that approachesthe statusof a
firstprinciple,it has been not the "self-sufficiency
of language" or the "materiality
of the sign" but thereciprocityofpracticeimpliedbya community ofwriterswhoread
each other'swork.In mainstreampoetrysuch a community,ratherthan being a
group of individuals,is a set of institutionalnorms-the replaceablecomponents
of workshop reading circuits, summer writing programs, and appreciative
reviews-but it still shares an explicitset of assumptions;it is a literaryschool.
What seems so troublingabout our tendencyis that its social constitutionis not
hidden behind the kinds of "neutral" evaluationsof poetic competencethat are
reflectedin practiceas "craft."Afterall, on order to have one's poem accepted
by a magazine such as AmericanPoetryReview,Poetryof The New Yorker,there
is supposed to be a disinterestedstandard of judgment embodied in some
individualwho can judge. This anxietyover judgmentruns the creativewriting
business-"Is my version of experience good enough?" "Not yct!"-and the
mastersof this patient rebuttaldisappear down the halls of academe, worried-
over manuscriptsin hand. Here we have a kind of institutionalatomizationthat
stands in for an individualsensibilitybased on implicitnorms.This is precisely
the opposite of explicitagency in the arts-the claim of the value of one's work,
appealing not to such "judgment" but to other measuresof efficacy.Aesthetic
tendency-the politics of intention-as opposed to aestheticarbitration,offers
an entirelydifferentway of seeing the poem as produced and received. It
explicitlyproposes a different order of methodsand values, veryunlike-to use
the jargon of the arts bureaucracies-the excellencethat admits neither social

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272 Silliman, Hejinian,Benson,
Harryman, Watten
Perelman,

affiliationsnor theoreticalclaims. This distinctionbetweenjudgmentand inten-

tion is well reflectedin the social formationsof the art-on the one hand, the
hierarchiesof "disinterested"submissionand acceptancein the mainstreampoetry
journal and on the otherthe peer politicsof interestedaffiliation found in groups
such as ours.
We don't want to be shy about this-we want to be in contactwith other
writerswhose work we thinkis worthwhile;we want to learn somethingfrom
them.That is whywe advocate freedomof association,and throughthatfreedom,
within the economy of means of any social process, comes the dynamicsof a
literaryschool. It's a part of a mutual,collectivefindingout not formallydefined
by abstract judgment. And, by extension,we assume that other writersand
groups ideally would pursue theirends in similarways. Still, many writersand
criticsproclaim a radical aversion to groups, often stated in overtlyideological
terms that oppose individual to collective practice. At its extreme, wec are
remindedof the recentretirement speech of marineCorps GeneralPaul X. Kclley,
who observed that the moral fiberof the nation was being threatenedby the
collectivismimposed on preschoolersby the day-caresystem.This apotheosis of
psychologicalreductionism(society is not your real mom) stands in for a wide
range of personal expressionsof antipathytowardsociety.Such rehashedrugged
individualismhas its equivalents in poetic discourse. Robert Dunca, certainly
no Marine Corps general,recentlylikenedour tendencyto "a crowdof mosquitoes
over someone else's swamp;8 we thinkthis characterizationof a literarygroup
as a (collective) swarm of insects evokes certainmass-psychologicalresonances
that Duncan should have been more aware of. But there is a flip side to this
discursive formation-the implied territorialclaim on literatureas "not their
swamp." What initiallyseems to be a defenseof the sovereignindividualturns
out to be a fightover the literarywith a big L, specifically who is and is not to
be admittedinto the canon.
We thinkpoetryin the United States should be big enough to admit many
schools of thought,which is why we feel we can pursue the issue raised by our
own. What is surprisingis the natureof the reaction:pursuingone's own interest,
as a participantin a social milieu, is felt to threatena social totalitywhich is
alreadyotherwiseclaimed.The next step is repression,and it is no accidentthat
raisingthe specterof a "group" was immediatelyfollowedby a markeddecrease
in the support for experimentalwriters,publishers,and programs,particularly
throughthe National Endowmentforthe Arts.
While we are flagrantly this articleas a group, the perceptivereader
xwriting
will alreadyhave noticed thatuntilthis point neitherthe "Language School" nor
"Language Poetry" have been named. This is no accident; the politicsof group
identityare a problem (and challenge) particularly forthose alternatelyidentified

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ThePolitics A Manifesto
ofPoetry: 273

withinand withoutit. We would all, in short,admitto being primarilyinterested

in our own work-but does thatreleaseus, or it, fromsocial context?
In a recentinterview,Michael Palmer, a poet who has appeared in all the
major magazines and anthologies of our tendencybut who at the same time
expressesreservationsabout literarygroups,was carefulto distancehimselffrom
the marketimplicationsof such group identitywhile at the same timespeculating
on the historicalvalue of his liminalrelationto it:

My relationshipto theLanguagepoetsis this:first,

thereis a certaindisservice
that's been performed, partlyby themselves, in groupinga fairlydiverse
community of writers
underthatrubricforthesakeof self-presentation. They
came along at a certainpointand weregeneroustowardworksuch as mine

Who or what decides who "they" are; who or what definesmembershipin

a group? Is the determiningfact social affinity
or style-or an explicitagenda?
If the grouping of "a fairlydiverse communityof writers"is arbitrary,perhaps
Palmer'sdistinguishinghimselffromit is arbitraryas well. He continues:

Likewise,I would say thatthe way I inhabitlanguage,or languageinhabits

me, is in a sense moretraditional thanthe way throughprocedural models
thatmanyof the so-calledLanguagePoetswork.In thatrespect,I'm a little
bitoutside,justas a Matisseor a Rilkewouldbe outsidetheongoingschools.9

It is clear that the notion of a group has conflictinguses for Palmer. As

individual he can stand outside it as the sole author of his works (shared
influencessuch as Stein, Zukofsky,and Crceleynotwithstanding) while in history
he can definehimselfin relationto a collectivestyle,as in the examplesgiven
above. But alreadythe notion of a group is doing its work,callinginto question
the meaning of styleand puttingits markon historicaltime. Collectivityin this
sense is as much a source of value as the individual author. This dialectic is
charged-how much social definitioncan one writeradmit?-but it is also part
of the implicitmeaning of both individualsand groups. Individual writersare
definedin relationto collectiveprocesses for Palmer,and at least in this article
we are arguing for the significanceof a group against the canonical individual
of the "expressivist"tendency,itselfa social movement.
If the alienating processes of social atomization have been an
unacknowledgedbasis of institutional"cxprcssivist"aesthetics,theyhave likewise
been a primaryfocusof our practice.The difference is thatratherthan producing
more social atoms along the lines of the poets representedin the Morrow
Anthology ofYoungerPoets,we want to point out the process and its implications

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274 Silliman,Harryman,Hejinian, Benson,Perelman,Watten

for issues that transcend the narrow elevation of personal experience to standards
of taste and judgment. This has involved specific arguments about the nature of
social reality and a person's place in it, and it has produced a poetry whose
formal values may be the obverse of the autonomous, New Critical lyric. In the
course of our work over the last several years, a congruence of method outside
the "self-sufficientpoem" has opened up new possibilities of agency for the poet.
This has come to pass by virtue of the critique that occurs in the work itself, and
by the ever-widening circle of its range of admissible materials. In other words,
the forms we are working in are particularly addressed to what is otherwise left
out, elided, passed over in silence, not represented. This as much as "language"
is at the center of our concerns.

If the functionof writingis to "expressthe world." My fatherwithheldchild

support,forcingmy motherto live with her parents,my brotherand I to be
raised togetherin a small room. Grandfather called themniggers.I can't afford
an automobile. Far across the calm bay stood a complex of long yellow
buildings,a prison. A line is the distance between. They circled the seafood
restaurant,singing"We shall not be moved." My turnto cook. It was hard to
adjust my sleepingto those hours when the sun was up. The eventwas nothing
like theirreportof it. How concernedwas I over her failureto have orgasms?
Mondale's speech was drowned by jeers. Ye wretched.She introducesherself
as a rape survivor.

Ron Silliman

Clothes keep a cupidinousman

All the way buttonedup,
Moxie is spent by plodders
Dumping pantyhose,
but hungry...

PeasantsfromUruguayon super-
Human expresstrainswait
forunderwearto be checked.
Raised,
the greathem extended...

The world in bands of searing

Change on a broad spectrum,
A versionof everymissile
That sent up,
mustcome down ...

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ThePolitics A Manifesto
ofPoetry: 275

On the heads of panel members

To signifystateof the art
For multiplereentrytarget
At 300 meters,
I look up ...

Watten
Barrett

Clog hours measure,thatbroad duration,that

morning'sunit of content
Clocks cross pointsquaver value; I am judging;
the poem couldbe
A unit of cognitionpoised withinand a termin
moralphilosophy
Hourly intimatelyshiftingblades withtotal
veracityas I describean idea
That is, in my language; a cup; the verygrassand
encounter
The clairvoyantmightuncover-bending worldwide
with squinting,headlong,in myhead

LynHejinian

"The poet thinkswith [her] poem," Williams wrote, but this can mean a
more exploratoryrole for the writer than the well-intentionedmoralistwho
thinks"hard for us all" or the partisanof the past who wants poetryto remain
unaffected-ineitherformor content,but the world as it has changed.

NOTES

1. Poetics
Journal (6, 1986: 141-44).
2. "Whatis LanguagePoetry?" Critical
Inquiry,12 (Summer1986: 741-52).
3. "PoemsArea Complex," A QuickGraph:Collected 1970: 54).
Notes& Essays(San Francisco,
4. InformalSpeech, Edward C. Carteretteand MargaretHubbard Jones 1974:
(Berkeley, 392).
5. Collected
Poems, WilliamCarlosWilliams(1: 240.
6. OpenLetter,"TextandContext," BruceAndrews (Summer1977: 82).
7. Give'EmEnoughRope,(82).
8. Sagetrieb,
(4, Nos. 2-3,Fall/Winter1985).
9. TalkingPoetry,ed. Lee Bartlett
(Albuquerque:1987: 130-31).

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