Language

I'm excited about it. The presentation coming up for class was a good choice. The unknown usually is. I'm not going to bother explaining language poetry here, but some of the ideas I can't help but laugh at (aka with). They are ideas I have been wanting to include in my own projects, before actually reading them in Ron Silliman's "In the American Tree". They include:

a one-shot publication: I love the idea of it. It's pretty much a chapbook, but when combined with a periodic publication it has the opportunity to serve different subjects, and cleaning the slate, going into different ideas without to much regard of the previous issue. So, it's not like a newspaper which will continue with a story for a few issues, and it's probably not even like a magazine and its editors whom constantly push their ideas/beliefs through a publication.

list: for the presentation I wanted to make a long, senseless list of poets associated w/ language poetry, and i laughed when on the next page I found exactly that. It's a simple coincidence, but I like it. It's almost like validation, knowing that some ideas have already been used effectively.

But then this gets me thinking. What else can we (poets and writers) do to further the medium? Where do we go from here, or where do I go from here with my "Chicano" poetry? I suppose that's one challenge of writing my thesis. To not recreate poems by other Chicano's. But I always want to do more. I don't want my poems to sound the same, use the same words, I need for them to be distinct. The ideas of Language poetry may help with this: go beyond reference.

And chances are, two months from now I will find a Chicano poet inspired by the Language poets. And I'll have to laugh.