Brinson 1 Counter-Cannon: The Tangle of Modern and Postmodern in Other Contemporary American Poetry On the surface, Paul Hoovers

Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology seeks to create an authoritative, exhaustive collection of subculture poetry, including representatives of such movements as the Beats, The New York School, San Francisco Renaissance, language poetry, performance poetry, deep-image and the Black Mountain School. What is gained by anthologizing these disparate groups of poets and trying to reconcile them as a group under the banner of postmodernism? As Steve McAfferty notes, the anthology is hardly a consortium of confreres (McAfferty 214). Not only is it difficult to determine what guiding principle unites such dissimilar groups as are included, but McAfferty also observes that Indeed many of these "post modernists" adopt a poetics hostile to each other (Language poetry's repudiation of speech-based poetics being one example) (McAfferty 214). The critic suggests that the anthology presents an unnameable [sic] incommensurate heterogeneity (McAfferty 214). Superficially, Hoovers anthology serves as a body of other poetry. As poet and critic Marjorie Perloff notes, the most immediate defense of Hoovers anthology is that its hyperinclusion [...] is designed to give us everything the other Nortons do not (Perloff 112). As a companion piece to the Norton Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, which is assumed to summarize and map the mainstream contemporary poetry to which this anthology is an alternative and a challenge, Hoovers project of inclusion makes sense. But perhaps something more beneficial and more significant to writers and thinkers working within the traditions of contemporary poetry can be gleaned from Hoovers attempts to redefine postmodernism in a way which allows for such inclusion.

Brinson 2 Paul Hoovers Introduction to Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology reveals many of the deep contradictions and tensions within contemporary American poetry and the very dialectic of modernism/postmodernism itself. What evolves out of his attempts to position the body of poetry within these traditions is a definition of postmodernism that attempts to continue the avant-garde idealist project of the modernists to challenge the bourgeois subject and to resist commodification of art via the innovation of postmodern techniques. The critiques of the modernist project that postmodern thinkers such as Ihab Hassan have raised are answered by the current avant -garde by deploying postmodern techniques to continually renew resistance and revolt. Hoovers Introduction doesnt do a significant amount of the heavy intellectual lifting needed to articulate and advocate for this idealistic redirection of postmodernism. But in struggling through the political ramifications of creating the anthology that he does, Hoover provides a model for praxis which helps to establish a base for understanding the tradition of politically motivated poetic resistance which includes both modernist and postmodernist tendencies and continues to thrive into the twenty-first century. What is the avant-garde? What is Postmodernism? Hoover spends as much of his introduction to the anthology explaining the use of the term postmodern as he does tracing the literary lineages of the poetic schools he chooses to label with the term. He argues that using the words avant-garde or experimental to describe all of the different movements would be too limiting: I have chosen postmodern for the title over experimental and avant-garde because it is the most encompassing term for the variety of experimental practice since World War II, one

Brinson 3 that ranges from the oral poetics of Beats and performance poetries to the more writerly work of the New York School and language poetry (Hoover xxv). Unfortunately, in using the term postmodern, Hoover is labeling these movements with a signifier that has a conflicted and ambiguous meaning. Ihab Hassan, in his essay Towards a Concept of Postmodernism, notes that no clear consensus about its meaning exists among scholars (Hassan 3). In the face of such ambiguities, Hoover offers three important clarifying points. First, he disagrees that postmodernism represents a radical break with modernism. One of the few theorists of postmodernism mentioned in Hoovers Introduction, is Fredric Jameson, and he primarily serves to summarize a definition of postmodernism that Hoover rejects. While Hoover uses Jameson to introduce some elements of postmodernism that he will take up himself later, such as the death of the bourgeois subject, he attacks the idea, which he attributes to Jameson, that postmodernism is characterized by a break with nineteenth-century romanticism and early twentiethcentury modernism (Hoover xxvi). Hoover also argues that Jamesons argument about the role of the consumer in late capitalism leads a situation where deconstruction of expression would be symptomatic of the loss of individuality in a consumer society, and that As history finds its end in liberal democracy and consumerism, it loses its sense of struggle and discovery. [...] Similarly, Jamesons aesthetic populism would reflect the triumph of mass communication over the written word (Hoover xxvi) Hoover offers, in response to his own summary of Jamesons theories on postmodernism, An opposing argument to Jamesons, which suggests that

Brinson 4 postmodernism is an extension of romanticism and modernism, both of which still thrive. (Hoover xxvi). Rejecting the idea that postmodernism is a break from, rather than a continuation of modernism, he suggests that the poetry included in the anthology draws from an inheritance includ[ing] futurists, Dada, surrealism, modernism, and the varieties of postmodernism we are now experiencing (Hoover xxix). Hoover offers a list of authors whose postmodern elements spring from, rather than developed in opposition to, other poets working in the modernist tradition. He argues that what Jameson calls pastiche in his description of the postmodern exists in earlier works such as Finnegans Wake, among others, that performance poetry is simply the most recent of many attempts, including those of Wordsworth and William Carlos Williams, to renew poetry through the vernacular, and that John Cage, whose emphasis on indetermincancy in language represent high postmodernism, yet they can also be situated [...] in the history of romanticism. (Hoover xxvi). Hoover must argue for the continuation of modern influence in postmodernism, because one of the main organizing forces of the anthology is the modernist, avant-garde ideal of avoiding commodification and rejecting the bourgeois subject. Hoover suggests that both resistances are formally embodied in postmodern poetry: Despite their differences, experimentalists in the postwar period have valued writing-as-process over writing-as-product (Hoover xvii). This emphasis on process over product is a touchstone throughout the introduction that all of the schools included are connected to. The school that perhaps best embodies both of these avant-garde concerns at the same times is language poetry, which Hoover connects both formally (through prose poems) and politically with the literary tradition of the modernist Gertrude Stein: The emphasis [...]

Brinson 5 is placed on the production rather than [...] ease of consumption. Gertrude Stein gave the credit for the egalitarian theory of composition to her favorite painter (Hoover xxxvi). Hoover also connects the language poets with one of the other anthologized schools, arguing that their suspicion of the bourgeois subject is informed by Charles Olsons essays: Some aspects of Black Mountain poetics, especially Olsons statement against the individual ego, are also of interest to language poets (Hoover xxxv). Hoover is supported in his argument for a continued modernist agenda by one of postmodernisms most influential theorists. Ihab Hassan admits that some critics mean by postmodernism what others call avant-gardism or even neo-avant-gardism, while still others would call the same phenomenon simply modernism. (Hassan 3). Alex Callicinos, in his essay, Against Postmodernism, a Marxist Critique, argues that appropriation of Modernist motifs is absolutely typical of accounts of Postmodernist art (Callicinos 12) and that both the definitions given and the examples cited of Postmodern art place it most plausibly as a continuation of and not a break from the fin-de-sicle Modernist revolution (Callicinos 15). While Hoover only explicitly takes up Jamesons idea of postmodern rupture (hardly only Jamesons idea, for that matter), he seems to need to reject as well the idea that postmodernism represents the end of struggle and discovery [...] the triumph of mass communication over the written word. (Hoover xxvi). What is at stake here is the ability of postmodernism to continue the modern project resistance: postmodernism is, rather, an ongoing process of resistance to mainstream ideology (Hoover xxvi). Andreas Huyussen, in his book After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, and Postmodernism, argues that the resistance to mass culture constitutes the main difference

Brinson 6 between modern and postmodern art even while he calls for the modern view to be reinvigorated: this oppositionusually described in terms of modernism vs. mass culture or avant-garde vs. culture industryhas proven to be amazingly resilient despite some postmodern theorists and practitioners like Andy Warhol, who encourage art to embrace its place within the world of exchange and consumption (Huyussen 16). Huyussen argues that From its beginning the autonomy of art has been related dialectically to the commodity form (Huyussen 7). Can postmodern technique allow the avant-garde to simultaneously embrace mass culture and resist the commodity form? Huyssen explains why someone like Jameson may believe that art has lost its revolutionary spirit: the historical avant-garde, modernism and postmodernism have methodically severed the vital dialectic between the avant-garde and mass culture in industrial society (Huyssen 4). Huyssen calls for a reinvigoration of the modern avantgarde: The point is rather to take up the historical avantguardes insistence on the cultural transformation of everyday life and from there to develop strategies for todays cultural and political context (Huyssen 7). Huyssen is not alone in his response to postmodern critiques of modernism, which is, in effect, to demand a better modernism rather than to accept the idea that the project is doomed to failure. Jurgen Habermas, in his essay "Modernity--An Incomplete Project" thoroughly takes up the intellectual challenge to advocate for this program of modernist reinstatement: In sum, the project of modernity has not yet been fulfilled. [...] The project aims at a differentiated relinking of modern culture with an everyday praxis that still depends on vital heritages, but would be impoverished through mere traditionalism (Habermas 107). Hoover echoes this Habermas language in his introduction, describing

Brinson 7 the project of the avant-garde that continues through postmodern poetry via the critic Peter Berger: Avant-garde art, according to critic Peter Burger, opposes the bourgeois model of consciousness by attempting to close the gap between art and life (Hoover xxv). Having committed to this project, Hoover then demands that postmodern poetry respond to Bergers famous critique of art: However, an art no longer distinct from the praxis of life but wholly absorbed in it will lose the capacity to criticize it (Hoover xxv). Hoover suggests that it is not the avant-garde, but Vanguardism [that] thus collaborates with nineteenth-century aestheticism in the diminishment of arts social function even as it attempts to advance it (Hoover xxv). Hoovers deployment of the avant garde/ vanguard dialectic seems to suggest that it is more traditional, less experimental art that fails to respond to such criticism, struggling through innovation to maintain its outside position even while it attempts to break down the art/life divide. To sum up the philosophical heavy-weights of Huyssen, Hassan, and Habermas who could be enlisted to support Hoovers definition and use of postmodern, the avant-garde attempt to explode the art/ life praxis divide (while resisting commodification) is still valid, but has to adapt in form, if not in intent, to the challenges of contemporary culture. In Hoovers argument for the continuation of modern resistance through postmodernism lies Hoovers second major clarification of what he means when he says postmodern. He offers a list of postmodern critiques, which overlap with Hassans famous table in Toward a Concept of Postmodernism, albeit through the dangerous mode of dialectic or negation. Hoover argues that postmodern poetry opposes the centrist values of unity, significance, linearity, expressiveness, and a heightened, even heroic, portrayal of the bourgeois self and its concerns (Hoover xvii). From Hassans

Brinson 8 table in Towards a Concept of Postmodernism, Hoover could have pulled the dialectical positives found in the postmodern section Dadaism, antiform, anarchy, process, performance, happening, participation, intertext, against interpretation, antinarrative, indeterminancy (Hassan 7). Hoover takes time to argue for each poetic group from which he selected and anthologized representatives that the different and unique approach taken by that group is directly engaging an element of the postmodern discourse as described by one of its major theorists. Hoover argues that Indeterminancy means the conditionality of truth, as well as a compositional tendency away from finality and closure; the text is in a state of unrest or undecidability (Hoover xxxi). Hoover connects this main postmodern idea with the poetry of the New York Schools John Ashberry, which Through circuitousness and obliqueness, Ashberry alludes to things in the process of avoiding them, (Hoover xxxi), but he also notes that the resistance to closure is explicitly taken up by the language poet Lyn Hejinian in her essay, Against Closure. Hoover makes his argument for the postmodern indeterminancy of language poetry, as well as its resistance to the bourgeois subject and commodification of the epiphanic lyric when he asserts Language poetrys resistance to closure, which infuses meaning throughout the poem rather than overlaying it in lyrical and dramatic epiphanies (Hoover xxxvi). Hoover explicitly connects this postmodern tendency in language poetry to the avant-garde: Such a view disinvests the language of metaphysics and returns it to the physical realm of daily use (Hoover xxxvii). Hoover continues to defend the postmodernism of his chosen poets, describing the Aleotory poetry of John Cage and Mac Low with its emphasis on the

Brinson 9 indeterminate and accidental, its reliance on rigid structures and methods to achieve randomization, its use of appropriation and found materials (Hoover xxxii). Then Hoover tackles his justification for including what could be the most divergent group in his anthology, the performance poets. Hoover argues that The effect of performance poetry has been to devalue the poem as poem, a self-contained object, and to reinstute its instrumental function as communication (Hoover xxxix). While Hoover connects performance poetry to the main avant-garde project that is being promoted through the postmodernism of the anthology, he takes time to include a critique of the movements efficacy: The dilemma of performance poetry lies in a paradox of commodity. While performance art began as a way to decommodify the art object, its inherent theatricality quickly reinvests it with commodity value (Hoover xxix). The third stratagem that Hoover employs in his explanation of the definition of postmodernism used to organize his anthology is to suggest that postmodernism is plural. He makes this assumption explicit when he explains, This anthology does not view postmodernism as a single style with its departure in Pounds Cantos and its arrival in language poetry (Hoover xxvi). Hoover creates a praxis of postmodernism where although one of the elements from the Hassan table might be sufficient to label a poem postmodern, none of them is absolutely necessary. In other words, these are very different approaches to the avant-garde project responding through postmodernism, and each will succeed in one way to utilize postmodern techniques and perhaps fail in another. Hoover claims that Postmodernism decenters authority and embraces pluralism. It encourages a panoptic or many-sided point of view (Hoover xxvii). Hoover suggests that there are multiple positions within postmodernism that can be used to justify a

Brinson 10 poems inclusion, and inversely, that it isnt useful to attempt to exclude a text from the postmodern cannon by mistaking a definition of postmodernism as an authority in a field of contested, contingent foundations. What is Mainstream ? The second organizing principle of Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology lies Paul Hoovers claim that the term postmodern also suggests an experimental approach to composition, as well as a worldview that sets itself apart from mainstream culture (Hoover xxv). But in order to understand the dialectical relationship between postmodern and mainstream, (problematic in itself where postmodernism is defined as a cultural dominant) the second term, mainstream, needs to be defined or contextualized. Hoovers attempt to define what many have called a cultural dominant, as set apart from the mainstream, seems absurd without the context of Hoovers very specific definition of postmodernism. For Hoover, postmodern poetry continues to resist commodity culture and stable subject position. While no theorist of postmodernism suggests that late capitalism supports the stable subject, Hoovers very specific context within contemporary American poetry allows an understanding of a contemporary mainstream that many critique as both participating in commodity culture and the idea of the stable subject. Hoover assumes that his audience has the familiarity with contemporary poetry to be able to determine what his anthology is a reaction against, which is reasonable enough considering that mainstream contemporary poetry is canonized in Postmodern American Poetrys sister anthology, Nortons Contemporary American Poetry.

Brinson 11 But for those who arent immersed in the mainstream journals, publishing houses, prize lists, writing programs, and conferences, Christopher Beach gives a compelling overview as well as a case study of the tensions between these two competing cannons on his essay Poetic Positionings: Stephen Dobyns and Lyn Hejinian in Cultural Context. Beach describes two major branches of American contemporary poetry: the workshop or mainstream poem and experimental poetry. Beach describes mainstream poetrys practice of a consistent voice predicated on the idea of the unified individual (or, in ideological terms, of the bourgeois subject) [...] practiced by most mainstream poets (Beach 60), and epiphany, which is either the attempt to convey a final moment of emotional transcendence (Beach 74), or often, a punch line, the kind of ironic twist used as a standard devices in many workshop poems (Beach 54-55). While the lyric mode assumes and reenacts the bourgeois subject, Beach argues that the epiphany does not bear rereading, and such devices only work to insist upon its status as a consumable object (Beach 54-55). Thus Beach also connects epiphany to the commodifcation of the poem. Hank Lazer, in his review of postmodern poetry anthologies, Anthologies, Poetry,
and Postmodernism, Postmodern American Poetry, not only agrees with Beachs description of the mainstream poetry establishment but emphasizes its homogeneity. Lazer offers his description of

the standardized American poem of the past twenty-five years: simple declarative syntax; the illusion of a craftless, transparent language; a simple, speechlike singular voice in the service of a poem that ends with a moment of epiphanic wonder and/or closure where all parts of the poem relate to a common theme. (Lazer 368)

Brinson 12 Beach and Lazers descriptions of the poetic mainstream are necessary to understand what Hoovers anthology of postmodern poetry is resisting and how that resistance can be explained and defined. In context, it becomes clear that Hoovers anthology is a political statement, and that his struggle to define multiple poetic positions and approaches with the term postmodern is both a pointed attack on the mainstream poetry establishment, and also an attempt to define that establishment with the terms of its critique. In Marjorie Perloffs review of the postmodern poetry anthologies of the 90s, she points out that this move invites the critique that the movements are not as clearly defined as Hoover and the other anthologist seek to make them seem. She questions whether or not there arent poets whose work could be argued to express a postmodern subject position even while it has found broad acceptance in the poetry establishment. She suggests that without looking in depth into particular poets, its difficult to abstract a good praxis for deciding whose poems can be called postmodern. Perloff suggests that the The trouble with all this talk of oppositionality to "mainstream ideology" is that it doesn't get down to cases (Perloff 112). Perloff continues her critique by highlighting the individuals who participate in the projects of both mainstream and postmodern poetry: Is Adrienne Rich's poetry, certainly not included here, "mainstream in its ideology? Does it believe in a "centered" authority? Her admirers would certainly say no. On the other side, how "initially shocking" are the "artistic strategies" of, say, Andrei Codrescu's "Paper on Humor" (Perloff 112). Perloff argues that by not arguing for a spectrum between mainstream and marginal poetries, and by drawing a hard line and then excluding what he decides are mainstream poets, Hoovers anthology both leaves the work of describing mainstream poetry up to others, despite the fact that marginal

Brinson 13 poetry is defined largely as a revolt against such poetry, and also excludes poets that, despite their acceptance into the mainstream cannon of Nortons sister anthologies, work to resist the mainstream ideology of commodification and the bourgeois subject. Steve McAfferty, in his review of a book making an argument about the shift in American poetry from modernism to postmodernism, makes a similar observation of the pitfalls of such dialectism: For the majority of artists, the rhetoric of periodization produces institutional shibboleths that facilitate temporal frames, when cultural thresholds, communities, transhistoric influences, countermoves, and tactics are far more salient (McAfferty215). Perloff also makes the argument that it can be difficult, now, to distinguish the mainstream from the avant-garde by virtue of their position within the establishment institutions, and argues this has lead to cross-over within the mainstream and avant-garde poetics: Poets of the counterculture like Allen Ginsberg and Robert Creeley now held university chairs and were selling their papers to university libraries for good prices. Then, too, the more conventional poets were beginning o experiment with fragmentation, typographic innovation, and varieties of free verse (Perloff 118). Beachs essay answers one significant lack in Hoovers Introduction by fulfilling Perloffs demand for particulars, but he does not solve the problem of the criticism of the middle ground that is ignored by Hoovers anthology. Beach articulates his definition of mainstream poetics through his readings of a representative poet of each movement, Stephen Dobyns, who has won numerous awards, published at the mainstream presses, and teaches at a large MFA program. He then compares Dobyns to the language poet Lyn Hejinian as an example of the postmodern aesthetic. Beach investigates how Lyn Hejinian rejects the epiphanic lyric in long poem My Life, and argues that Hejinians

Brinson 14 poem exhibits a suspicion of the stable subject and resistance to creating a poem as commodity, attempting, instead, to create a poem as process or as a happening. Throughout his essay, Beach supports attempts like Hoovers to define postmodern poetry as resistant, a continuation of the project of modernism through formal experimentation, and the dialectic between mainstream and avant-garde poetries. He describes his representative poet of the avant-garde, Hejinian, who adopts a postmodern subject position, one constituted by discursive formations [...] thus disrupting or interrupting any expectation of tonal consistency or of a coherent lyric subject (Beach 60). But Beach argues that Like the historical (modernist) avant-garde from which it is descended, language poetry necessarily defines itself [...] as a counterhegemonic political, aesthetic, and social practice (Beach note 46) Again, the apparent disconnect between the modern agenda of counterhegemonic political practice expressed by disrupting...a coherent lyric subject can only be explained by accepting Hoovers definition of postmodern poetry, one in which modernism is not replaced, but simply better fulfilled with the techniques of postmodernism. Thus Hejianian, through using the postmodern subject position, succeeds in creating a better modernism. Lazer also supports Hoovers new understanding of postmodern poetry as a fulfillment of modernism, arguing Language poets [...]offer a vigorous new reading of literary modernism, one which extends and pluralizes our understanding of what modernism was and is (Lazer 378). McAfferty also seems persuaded by this definition of postmodern working within the modern tradition, concluding, In the light of this statement (made three years before the publication of Olson's Protective Verse), Language poetry truly seems to complete, or at least continue, the Heideggerian project (McAfferty 215).

Brinson 15 Lazer also notes the political significance of rejecting the postmodern rupture and the possibilities of accepting Hoovers proposed position of political resistance through postmodernism: Perhaps the Hoover [...] antholog[y is a] launching-off poin[t] for the development of new reading and critical paradigms (Lazer 380). Solution to Problem of Posmodernism(s) In the end, Hoovers definition of postmodernism is a plural one that denies a sudden rupture with modernist impulse while at the same time highlight multivalent resistance which directs itself at elements of modern literature as well as that of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. The poets in this anthology each embrace a different mode of resistance to different aspects of the mainstream hegemony, such as the stable bourgois subject and the easily consummable epiphanic lyric. Such political work offers new and fertile ground for reinvigorating poetry with political intent and investigating which postmodern poetic strategies, among many, are most successful at achieving the resistant goal. By responding to critiques of modernism, and by using postmodern techniques, postmodern poetry can attempt to wed modern and postmodern elements into a new poetry of resistance and cultural critique.

Brinson 16 Works Cited Habermass, Jurgen. ModernityAn Incomplete Project. Postmoderism: A Reader. Ed. Thomas Docherty. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Hassan, Ihab. Toward a Concept of Postmodernism Huyssen, Andreas. After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism. Jameson, Frederic. Postmodernism, Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism Beach, Christopher. Poetic Positionings: Stephen Dobyns and Lyn Hejinian in Cultural Context. Contemporary Literature 38.1 (1997). Electronic. Hoover, Paul. Introduction. Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology. Ed. Paul Hoover. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. xxv-xxxix. Print. Lazer, Hank. Anthologies, Poetry, and PostmodernismPostmodern American Poetry. Rev. of
A Norton Anthology, by Paul Hoover; The Heath Anthologyof American Literature, Volume 2, by Paul Lauter; From the Other Side of the Century: ANew American Poetry 1960-1990, by Douglas Messer. Contemporary Literature 36.2 (1995) 362-383

Perloff, Marjorie. Whose New American Poetry? Anthologizing in the Nineties Diacritics
26.3/4 (996)104-123

McAffery, Steve. Autonomy to Indeterminacy Rev. From Modernism to Postmodernism:

American Poetry and Theory in the Twentieth Century, by Jennifer Ashton.Twentieth Century Literature 53,2 (2007) : 212-217