Monday, February 18, 2008

Becoming-Foreigner

I have to admit that I often fall into the antological trap - as when I call for American poets to read foreign literature, as if that kind of demand will somehow change the situation. Just as the woman must become woman, foreigners like myself must become foreigner (and woman, infant etc).

Francois I noticed made a good note on his blog - next to Deleuze & Guattari's becoming minor, the concept of "the avant-garde" seems awefully linear, teleological.

3 Comments:

Blogger François Luong said...

I forgot to squeeze in "Euro-centric." Because, you know, I don't think I've seen in discussions on the avant-garde any mentions of Ryuichi Tamura, Kitasono Katsue, or rarely any Brazilian concretists.

12:32 AM  
Blogger Johannes said...

Well, I have seen very little discussion of any avant-garde activity outside of the US, France and Italian Futurism/Dada.

Europe was teeming with interesting poets and movements that few Americans have ever heard of.

But yes we need more books like Radio Towers (about Japanese avant-garde) and Sergio Besa's recent de Campos collection.

6:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

there're a lot of great poets coming out of very small rarely talked about countries in eastern europe whom i think deserve a lot more attention than they are receiving...to change i propose that there be more us-based journals whose sole purpose is to publish the work of those living in europe and elsewhere...

as someone of scandinavian descent i am very excited, johannes, by your translations of poets like aase berg, parland, etc...and i think that your action yes is one of the most exciting journals to surface as of late...

8:59 AM  

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