Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?
I think this is an important question. If we are not evaluating “what poetry is” on the regular (remember that Ashbery poem, “What is Poetry”?), we are not really doing the work. So, then, what does that journey look like? I started in “conventional” poetry 20 years ago and most recently (past two years) strayed to asemic (for good definitions of this see Wikipedia) and vispo (visual poetry). I think the asemic and vispo scenes have erupted. From what I can tell, the asemic and vispo scenes, for years marginalized, are just getting into the mainstream with a recent write-up in Art in America, for example. I say that to illustrate that what we know is always ever evolving (especially definitions), right? Of course. What is marginalized, will become defined, policed (gatekeepers), and create more revolutionary work. Working in asemics and vispo has really opened my consciousness in this way. I want to be fluid. In and out. Back and forth. 15 years ago, I was focused on getting my poems published in “good” journals.
Now, I am especially drawn to and searching for the work of women. I (and many others) see the work of women to be leading the way in vispo and asemics. See Dona Mayoora or Terri Witek. We must give women the publications and gallery shows we have not received; we have been overlooked or pushed out. We are here. That is why I started WAAVe (Women Asemic Writers and Visual Poets). Amanda Earl is doing really amazing work on this front. Too much to list here.
Ashbery’s poem has these lines: “Shut your eyes, and you can feel it for miles around. / Now open them on a thin vertical path.” Is this poetry?
I really don’t think this answers the question at all! Ha.
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