The Iowa Review
Volume 32
Issue 1 Spring
Article 19
2002
Isn't the Avant Garde Always Pedagogical:
Experimental Poetics and / as Pedagogy
Alan Golding
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Golding, Alan. "Isn't the Avant Garde Always Pedagogical: Experimental Poetics and / as Pedagogy." The Iowa Review 32.1 (2002):
64-70. Web.
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ALAN
GOLDING
the avant
"Isn't
garde
always
pedagogical":
Experimental
Poetics and / as Pedagogy
64
in my
about a line in Lyn
thinking
avant
"Isn't
the
Hejinian's My Life:
garde always pedagogical[?]"
struck me as a term with particular connota
(92). "Pedagogical"
This
essay
has
its roots
tions
in that sentence,
sible
alternative
didactic,
of social
connotations
like "didactic."
from those of a pos
have always been
Avant-gardes
in their production
of manifestoes,
their strong element
on
art
their
claims
the
of the future. But to
and
critique,
of professionalization
that come with
a
is to introduce
shift in the avant-garde's
the connotations
introduce
the word
"pedagogy"
to the idea of teaching and
strate this shift briefly if I begin with
relation
both didact
When
different
and self-described
its institutions.
I can demon
an avant-garde poet who was
Charles Olson.
pedagogue,
Olson
addressed
his broadside
"Letter for
letter-poem
to
his
friend
and
Melville's
Eleanor
1951"
granddaughter
and its
and
vitriol
the
Melville
Metcalf,
upon
Society
poured
"One Hundredth
upcoming
Birthday Party" forMoby-Dick, he could
situate
himself
outside
the academic circles on which
comfortably
Melville
he was
A coterie poet himself, Olson
nonetheless
commenting.
offers a bluntly sarcastic critique of coterie academic politics: "who
to organize ourselves
in
but us, who but us has had the niceness
his name, who, outside us,...who
is, but us, provided with dormi
tories and catering services?"
(234) None of this is very subtle?
never
when one factors in the distaste
broadsides
are?especially
ful queer-bashing
that also runs through the poem and the possi
of professional
ble elements
jealousy in a poet who, a Melvillean
on
that academic world. But a poem
himself, had turned his back
1951" is hard to imagine today, when avant
so
in the pedagogical
is
institu
implicated
garde poetics
complexly
as
tion that it still frequently critiques. To think of the avant-garde
a significant
as Hejinian
shift in the
does, marks
"pedagogical,"
like "Letter for Melville
closeness
Within
problem
of the avant-garde's
relation to the academy.
recent avant-garde poetics two contrary responses
can be found
institutions
of poetry and pedagogical
to the
in the
University of Iowa
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Ron
exchange between
a 1997 symposium
Silliman
and Bob Perelman
coming
out of
on Perelman's
critical book The Marginalization
and Literary History. Perelman's
subse
con
to critiques of his book devotes
of Poetry: Language Writing
quent "Counter-Response"
siderable time to defending
his attention
to academia.
As he right
the original panel had
ly points out, "many people who attended
in school"
their desire for poetry at least partially piqued
(38)?
one
can
one
be
that
learns about the
which
place
paradoxically
venues
for poetry that Perelman also
is one cru
Perelman's
values.1 Throughout
remarks, "pedagogy"
the notion
that
cial source of interest in poetry. After dismissing
attractions
of the non-school
in a
"our passion for poetry" is "created by purely visual epiphany
on
to
assert
he
that
kind of unpedagogic,
birth,"
goes
virgin
"ped
are very widespread
and circulation
agogy, repetition
structuring
as writer and as imaginer
to act?both
against which
for
that is,
The
(40).
poetics,
challenge
experimental
is how to engage, rather than turn one's back on, these conditions.
own engagement
is a
Around
the issue of pedagogy, Perelman's
in
and
ambivalent
reflected
how
he
about
talks
the
one,
complex
conditions
of receivers"
that reading poetry requires. In glossing his poem "The
of Poetry," which early on cites Jack Spicer's well
Marginalization
knowledge
known
lines "No one
honors
listens
to poetry,"
Perelman
observes
that he
autonomy
saying
"by giving no references,
know about him" (38). This moment
antici
in a recent Perelman
talk on the teaching of
coterie
Spicer's
you have to already
pates a similar one
in [Ted]
"It is a given
where
he writes
experimental
writing
even
Frank
work
that
more,
O'Hara,
and,
John Ashbery
Berrigan's
a given? You
are unquestionable
masters.
How is this information
to know. How do you know?...How
does one teach that?"
Iwould
add that you also "have to know" the
("'Just Like Me'")
to the New York
texture and context
of Berrigan's
allusions
notes
scene?Norton
do it. How does one
wouldn't
explanatory
have
teach what
one knows when
one
this claim
it is more
than can be taught? From
is a form of special
knowledge
the teacher-student
preserves
hierarchy
to special
angle,
that comfortably
pleading
or the coterie poet's status. But for Perelman's
his com
purposes,
ment on Spicer makes for an effectively
point, since
self-justifying
most
readers will
him)
from
school.
"know
So,
about
him"
(or can get
rather wonderfully,
you
to know
about
"know
about"
65
from school, at the same time as what is to be
is ultimately
unteachable.
recent work
in poetry splices genres, dis
of Perelman's
of "The Marginalization
of
and tones in just the manner
Spicer and Berrigan
known about them
Much
courses,
and teacherly text that
conference paper-essay-poem
on the avant-garde
book
of
his
the
title
academic
poetics
provides
"An Alphabet
of
The essay-poem-chapter
of Language writing.
Poetry"?the
66
in that book is indirectly a teaching poem about
its pedagogical
that
purpose by locating
pursues
Language writing
one that dangles
the work in a tangled and ambivalent
genealogy,
as possi
and bracing "instruction"
"seduction"
both a stultifying
et
Horace's
duke
in
of
Perelman's
bilities:
utile, "a tradi
adaptation
tion of seduction and instruction"
(Marginalization 147). He begins
Literary History"
this
teaching
Wordsworth's
in
aimed
manifesto
section
A
of
the
to the Lyrical Ballads,
at teaching its readers how
Preface
poem
by mimicking
an earlier avant-garde
to read it. Keats' most
moment
"For the record:
is also parodied:
pedagogical
is
the
lesson the body
writinG
That
is
/
writinG,
speech.
Speech
to hear..."
and Keats here are really
waits
(149). Wordsworth
in quota
and "Keats"; that is, their names belong
"Wordsworth"
as
as
are
not
so
much
tion marks when
poets
present
they
a
in
8
Week
in
of
brief
historical
narrative,
stopovers
signifiers
to
the Present.
British Lit 11,Dryden
famous
next
a ventriloquized
Roland
Barthes
says in Perelman's
litera
be
"I
There
old
tricks.
would
like
those
any
hardly
chapter,
ture without
them. And not much writing,
either, to tell the truth.
in focus?"
Isn't that a distinction
(160)
you're
trying to keep
Barthes goes on to lament his own status as an object
Perelman's
As
but
he says, "gained me a big audience,
of pedagogy: my writing,
tone
is
so many of them were students,
(162). If Barthes'
finally"
are neverthe
to suggest,
Perelman wants
students,
deprecating,
lies. At the same time, however,
the "big audience"
about his own enterprise.
voices
conflicts
Perelman's
less where
Barthes
to the entanglements
Returning
room functions
to comb out),
its pedagogic
of
part
mocking
of genealogy
(which the class
Barthes
the book by
concludes
are
"You
Americans
project:
at
with
self-fashioned
lineage, aren't you?" (165)?this
the end of a chapter that has begun with a Frank O'Hara epigraph,
"And don't worry about your lineage, poetic or natural" (156).
obsessed
Let me
exchange
On
the
return now
between
to the Marginalization
and Silliman
Perelman
of
the
evening
"Confession"?a
significant
to
the
poem
panion piece
panel,
choice
of Poetry panel
that Imentioned
Perelman
both
read
for its status
and the
above.
his
poem
as a com
and for its cheery
"Marginalization"
seems pretty normal: //
"This writing
sentences;
semicolons;
complete
yada yada. I / seem to have lost
my avant-garde / card in the laundry. They say / that's typical. Well,
of the normative:
embrace
/
you'll just have to use your judgment,
earthlings!
Judgment,
that's your job! Back to work!"
(Future of Memory 11). Even with
their move
into verbal slapstick,
these lines get to a significant
between Perelman and Silliman on the question of judg
For it is precisely what Silliman sees as the twin problemat
ics of "aboutness"
in The Marginalization
and value judgments
of
For
that
he
the
constraints
of a pedagogi
Silliman,
Poetry
queries.
difference
ment.
to require the judgments on which canon
rest invalidate
ical exclusions
and inclusions
that pedagogy
by
In such a context,
definition.
institutional
risks taking
legitimation
cal situation
precedent
argues,
position
by Oscar
that seems
over
Silliman
Thus,
self-legitimation.
avant-gardist
are all put into an untenable
"the very best poet-teachers
not radically different
in its structure from that confronted
Schindler?the
most
they can hope to do is to help a few
to minimize
and
the
damage"
in
the
academic
process
participants
students
escape
12). Most
("Marginalization"
actively obstruct the reading of poetry, and "there is no way out of
this double-bind
from within
the confines
of the English
(13).
Department"
These remarks are anticipated
in Silliman's
1987 book Lit, based
on his own teaching
at a time when he
and
experiences2
published
bright
was
arguing
elsewhere
that "academic
colonization
is contempo
("Poets" 124) but
a
fundamental
social problem"
rary poetry's
time also when few Language writers were formally affiliated with
the academy. Not so much "pedagogy"
in general, more the ques
tion of who enjoys the power to practice it, is one of the many sub
shorthand
for institutional
jects woven
through Lit?Silliman's
ized
"Literature."
tional
structures
satire at the institu
pointed
that supposedly
sustain the teaching of "lit"?
or / Full" (18)?
"Balinese / term for monkey, Associate
Monkey
and delights
in the despoliation
of the poetic products associated
Silliman
directs
67
structures:
"watch the orange cat spray / all over the
of a false
of
Press, dramatic / monologue
University
Pittsburgh
in
self" (19). More sober and sobering than these playful moments
with
68
those
Lit, however, are those that address "tenure"?Silliman's
trope for
that
becomes
the academy and its power structures.
"Tenure,"
is,
a way of talking succinctly
and inclusion, power
about exclusion
and its lack. He witnesses
tenure,"
"profuse apologies
denying
want
to
act
"administrators
[who]
(21, 29). It's
among
guilty"
capri
hardly news to be reminded of the twin roles of allegedly
cious judgment and fear in the tenure process:
"Elastic / aesthet
ic governs tenure, / fear," Silliman observes at one point, and then
"tenure / is terror" (45, 52). Perhaps
later, in a blunt off-rhyme,
more
is the reminder of the ways inwhich
that process
chastening
to the so
can be seen to mirror
"Aid
/
larger political processes:
to
nations
is intended
reinforce existing power
called developing
relations within
them. Of 13 tenured professors
/ twelve are white
men"
If the radical
(43).
analogies,
no wonder
is going to propose
such
poet-teacher
to
rid / the
"the grammarian
thinks
/ of poets teaching comp" (53).
Department
costs of main
to the political and psychological
testifies
Lit, then,
current
structures
of
original observations,
taining
pedagogy?not
we might
and wit and hardly
say, but registered with succinctness
in the work of more middle-of-the-road
contemporary
But
institutional
lives.
what about
who
their
poets,
largely repress
in
is
rather
than
Lit?
It
and
advanced
disabled,
poetry
suppressed
"Who remembers
the linguist of the
and enabled, by pedagogy.
common
Hotel Wentley"
(64), Jack Spicer?3 Not those "white and aimless,
cum laude" graduates who have a degree but no education, who
ones to
to purchase,
but not which
books
"have learned which
to canonical
exclusion?the
read." From failed pedagogy
path is
clear. "The road to Iowa City" and its writing program?too
glib a
so
at
time
of
Silliman's
the
but
less
target now,
writing?
perhaps
"is paved with good intentions"
but not good poetry or teaching
are locked into
Its "white and aimless" m fa students
practices.
of genre and presentation
limited notions
("perfect binding,"
that pro
into conventions
of publication
"ragged right" margins);
over the communal
mote
of submission
the power hierarchy
exchange
careerism
and into predictable
solicitation;
in
their efforts to appear
reflected
of
notions
of poetic
in Poetry magazine:
a site for soaring lyric lies" (64).
among other things, since Henry Rago
1969.
A few pages later, as he closes the book, Silliman appears to
move his target from Iowa to Harvard
(the site invoked by the
in fact it is UC Berkeley
phrase "the car in the yard"), although
"habit sought Rago's white
That habit is anachronistic,
had not edited Poetry since
that he has
in mind.4
horse,
in the neighborhood
of one develop
"the
ward
healers
of tenure bick
writing,
There,
ing center of Language
to keep
er" over whether
or the Chaucerian
the Spenserian
but
to deal with the material
at
cen
remain incompetent
the
textuality
ter of much avant-garde writing:
"not one literate among them in
the face of a single syllable
soft and simple,
sounded,
ample
enough
mouth"
to sample
(68). The
of
consists
thought rounded in the
of
the
passage I quoted, of course,
"materiality"
a concentration
or
of sonic devices
that Spenser
of the world's
their pedagogical
recognize
easily. From behind
see or hear this
cannot
tenure"
the
"healers
of
however,
Chaucer
would
blinkers,
as writing?merely
merely
division
the whole
sustains
as "not poetry." An impoverished
that trivial enterprise,
Lit: "Curriculum
pedagogy
demands
into genre and the vision
is gone of a possible writing"
a
statement
that
itself
into genre" by
troubles
"division
(68),
a
like an essay in College English instead of "lit." Within
sounding
Silliman
has moved
between
the extremes
of
sentence,
sonorousness
and
prose, enacting
(or
poetic
expository
formally
teaching his readers) what might be meant by "a possible writing."
But in the words
of his final paragraph,
the current balance of
single
the "discipline
limits"
power leaves "lit up, writing down," within
that an institutionalized
of
demands.
Silliman
poetry
pedagogy
that these "parrots of the past" will
little real hope
projects
respond to his variation on Marx's famous call: "parrots of the past
unite, for what have you to lose but that through which you live"
intellectual
chains.
(69)?your
In Silliman's Lit, the pedagogical
imperative to "make it known is
cannot be taught" (68).
such a small demand" when
"knowledge
in
the
differences
reflected
their
1997 exchange, this view of
Despite
seems not too far from Perelman preserving Spicer's and
knowledge
Berrigan's
Perelman's
knowing
coterie
question
status
so
to know.
that you just have
So
how do you know? If there's a poetic
calls in My Life "the language of inquiry,
remains:
(what Hejinian
69
pedagogy of poetry" [114]) and a knowing about poetry that cannot
be taught, perhaps avant-garde writing can at least formally instan
on what
in a way that reflects simultaneously
tiate that knowing
70
and how poetry might
teach, and on itself as a text likely to circu
a
context. Meanwhile,
late in pedagogical
beyond the apparent over
on
issue
the
of
Perelman
still believes that effective
lap
"knowing,"
of, and from the position of, experimental
poetics can be
in the university
accomplished
setting. Silliman does not. This
conflict has long been an exemplary one for avant-garde poetics
in
teaching
to pedagogical
its relation
institutions,
so today.
and it remains
NOTES
1. To clarify the phrase "the original panel": while Perelman participated
in "the original [1997] panel" on his Marginalization of Poetry, "Counter
Response" was written
from
the
after the fact but published
along with
the talks
panel.
2. Specifically, at San Francisco State University
and then uc San Diego
in
1981-82.
3. In response to my original reading of the "linguist" as John Wieners,
Silliman has said that he had Jack Spicer inmind (e-mail to the author,
5/9/00).
Spicer
is the author of The Hotel Wentley Poems,
Although Wieners
lived in the hotel (at the corner of Polk and Sutter in San
for a considerably
Francisco)
4. Silliman
has
said
"I use
in which
one,
hence
ably":
the
Berkeley,
where
and
Spenser
the
that
a
of
debate
scholars
obtained
at San Francisco
Fraser
one
the
is somewhat
schools
allusion
the
occurred.
Kathleen
the
different
over
span.
of Lit
academy
lot of
conflation
the
time
longer
the
E-mail
virtues
to the
composite
interchange
and
the
of
12:1 male:female
State University
female.
quite
to Harvard
competing
The
not
a
of
events
at
the Chaucer
faculty
ratio
in the early 1980s, with
author,
5/9/00.