Multiplicity:NOTES FOR/ON AUGUST HIGHLAND

One of the things I find most distressing about the world of twenty-first century poetics is this: one has favorite poets, not favorite poems. This persists even in the world of experimental poetics, where ego is routinely challenged, and the whole idea of subjectivity often slips under the microscope for re-examination (and, in finer moments, re-arrangement). Thinking such as this narrows down poetry considerably; it makes the poetry "scene" all too often just a smaller version of mainstream publishing, with its own small-scale Stephen Kings and John Grishams.

But why should this matter to the READER of experimental poetics? Well, for one thing, it turns this "scene" into exactly what it was created in the beginning to counteract: a market. Literature once again becomes a commodity; its value is assigned to it by author-name, rather than quality of work. There are a plethora of respectable experimental literary journals out there that publish by invitation only; there's an even larger number that "accept submissions," but in reality only accept work that has proven market value. How can one justify this, in a mode of work that in theory practices openness and experimentation?

7) This is why Highland's work is important. It frustrates this completely; by playing at the author-value level, it's impossible for those interested more in experimental poetry's market value to grasp it. Will Teddy Warburg ever appear in the much-esteemed (and excellent, as far as quality, but closed, as far as politics) Jacket? Will Conjunctions ever publish work by Teddy? It's doubtful, as such journals seem more concerned with perpetuating one particular historical period in modern poetics rather than furthering the field.

So August's work flies in the face of such thinking. Its politics are utopian: the constructedness of its texts is a remnant of the old punk rock mentality, the idea that "anyone can do it, you should too." This work says: start your own movement. And many will heed that call.

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