Goransson Goes after Hoagland (and Wojahn)

Goransson goes after Hoagland for his comments about younger poets.

And doesn't like what Wojahn has to say either.

check it out. and check out the Comments Stream for both posts. Some good back and forth.


I saw that hack (Hoagland) at an Austin AWP Panel where he talked about the sort of poetry many young poets are writing. Poetry he's not so excited about. All I remember's him being so damned fucking smug. O, yeah, I remember him reading a poem and then saying something like:

I admire the total contempt this poem has for me
I admire the complete disregard blah blah
I admire blah blah blah

Most of the audience were lapping it up.
I was throwing up.
(chunks of Donkey Gospel, etc, etc)

AWP: Things I was Tempted to Do

1) Execute a rat.

2) Rub Goransson's head till theory, like sable-colored bees, came pouring forth.

3) Throttle that strange Omnidawn guy. Yeah that strange guy with the strange face trying to entrance and entrap you with his eyes and strange offers of "Gourmet Chocolate." Creepy.

4) Buy a bunch of Shane Jones' Light Boxes, take all the pages out, carefully, and then stitch them into a giant balloon and float away.

5) Say "are you going to buy it or what?" to that lost, sensitive soul who stood reading "The Man Suit" at the B.O. booth for 20 minutes. In fact, I said nothing. In fact (2), he bought it. In fact (3), it was probably only a minute or two (that was one of the many times I was tripping on my own juice).

6) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

7) Lock myself in my hotel room and watch Poem Videos all day long. Especially CD Wright's profound little piece about the bottle of green liquid and Paul Muldoon's wise Hedgehog. Yawn.

I did actually enjoy some of these.

But I think I enjoyed the fluttering little bird in the "O" most.

8) Use the word "prick" more often.
O, hell, I probably said it 50 times.

9) Start a book contest where the finalists have to fight to the death in a Coliseum filled with drunk bloodthirsty writers and me, of course, with my thumb ready.

10) Browse the bookfair's tables for poems to submit to the various categories of SPD's bad poem contest. I'm convinced that all the real winners of this contest have already been published. That no one could deliberately come up with shit as bad/good.

11) Go up to my room and watch porn.

Action, Yes

the new Action, Yes is on-line now

this is what Johannes has to say about it on Exoskeleton:

"It is very big. Some figures and frameworks will be familiar (but hopefully not too familiar) to readers of this blog.

It includes two "automanias" by Swedish poet/performer/novelist Sara Tuss Efrik.

It includes several pieces addressing "the gurlesque", including texts by Lara Glenum, Dodie Bellamy and Aaron Kunin.

It includes work by Tina Darragh and P.Inman, whose work Mark and I have talked about on this blog.

It includes poems by James Pate as well as his essay on Clayton Eshleman.

It includes two poems by Clayton Eshleman, including one dedicated to Laura Solorzano (who is about to give a reading here on the Notre Dame campus).

And a whole bunch more,including work by such participants of this blog as Angela Genusa, Christian Peet, Ron Klassnik and Evan Willner."


I'll add that the Lara Glenum essay in it centers round the Aase Berg Guinea Pig poems....