Tuesday, April 27, 2004

FormX (Boston Comment and Indeterminacy)

That second question (concerning indeterminacy) in the Boston Comment roundtable was like throwing a slow underhanded pitch to Barry Bonds. I guess Oren Izenberg said all that was going to be said. And it was a lead-off first-swing first-paragraph homerun.
It is neither true nor is it untrue that the poetic avant-garde of the past quarter century has had a reverence for indeterminacy. Or perhaps: what one poet who reveres indeterminacy reveres may or not be the same thing that another poet who reveres indeterminacy reveres, and it may be that neither one reveres indeterminacy.
It's tough sometimes batting after Barry. Like fifth wheel. Still I thought I'd give the question a shot in this experimental formalist avant-garde work written in the style of, and from this point on to be known as, "The School of Formal Experimentation," or FormX, for short.
In Determined Nations

An oyster washed his face
with music but the wind
cried out for saints; my Greek
was poor and I had sinned:
that sentence was too long
to lose. Monroe was wrong;

our doctrine means that no
magnetic charge in North
Dakota will be doctored.
I know about one-fourth
of all directions: west
will soon be manifest

to shipping lanes that split
apart from meaningful
interpretations. No
incomprehensible
physician ever wrote
a vital antidote.

Gregory Perry 2004

No comments: