Acknowledged Legislators: A Rant

[I just sent this off to Kasey Mohammad regarding his recent post Acknowledged Legislators: A Rant. I'm only including it here because I haven't had any new content for this blog in ages.]

Hi Kasey,

Just read your recent blog post and would like to post it on Circulars -- sound ok? It'll link back to you.

I think you get it all wrong though, on some level. The idea, for me, is not that poets are just trying to avert this war -- it would be quite remarkable if the Bush administration pulled back from this war, decided to mend relations with the entire European community, went in on various international treaties on the environment, sent AIDS drugs to Africa, took a stance on Palestinian rights, etc. not to mention decided not to bomb North Korea and continue to taunt Iran, etc.

I think that's where the criticism of Hamill lies -- that there is some idea that poets are merely against this war because they're against war in general, but are otherwise not mindful of the larger political universe and are not going to make more significant changes in how they view poetry andor poetics -- it's all subsumed under a humanistic/pacifistic viewpoint that stops once the drama ends.

This is certainly not an argument in favor of what you accurately portray as a sometimes curmudgeonly and ineffective old avant-garde stance, but my sense is that a new sort of running commentary has to be created, a new aesthetics for this, etc. and that it might be worth discussing once we figure out a little more how this is done (the art would have to come first, as usual).

I think the blog andor web phenom might play some part of this -- Heriberto seems most on this case. I'm not against the Hamill project myself, but I do see how it barely imagines how the poetry community will behave once this issue of "the war" has passed -- that's why I don't use the term "the war" in the subtitle to Circulars, it's really going to get much worse, much more intense, almost regardless of what happens. [Think MEDIA STRANGLEHOLD -- ed.]

Anyway, but I appreciated your post...

Cheers
Brian