To Work

There is an interesting squabble happening in literary circles as they attempt to talk about elements of women and feminist womens writing in particular, its value seems the big question. This is interesting in itself. It seems outdated by 50 years or so. I stumbled onto it, when looking for analysis of what innovative/
avant-garde writing and womens writing in particular was doing at the moment in the US, because it is extremely hard to see whats happening in Australian womens writing because the demographic is even smaller, minuscule in comparison.

The debate as articles was published in the Chicago Review Autumn 2007 so just a few weeks ago. It goes something like this, WACK, an Art and the Feminist Revolution big blockbuster show was held at MOCA in the states, http://www.moca.org/wack, earlier this year. It was a good show, I think great, but I only saw it second hand... the response was varied, lots of criticism for the work as being essentialist and so not worth much or anything by 'general' (whatever that is) standards. Anyway to some extent the show gave rise to lots of juicy debate and articles, and an article by Jennifer Aston titled "Our Bodies our Poems". In it she said "the recent commitment to women as formal innovators...is utterly and literally essentialist...

Then followed this article by Juliana Spahr and Stephanie Young who argue obliquely that the system is still excluding women... they have some extensive statistics to demonstrate this...worth a read. Then Jennifer Aston replies and lastly Joshua Kohin and Robert P. Baird add their perspective.

“Numbers Trouble” by Juliana Spahr and Stephanie Young

“The Numbers Trouble with ‘Numbers Trouble’” by Jennifer Ashton

“Poetry Magazines & Women Poets” by Joshua Kotin and Robert P. Baird

This debate is so interesting because it reveals the literal stuck-ness in this sort of perspective. Both sides are right and there is no room for them working together. I think it points to a very real need for more analysis of what exactly innovative, experimental women writers working on as ...So I thought I'd start to try and map that a bit here, for my own benefit and for anyone who would like to look over my shoulder.

I do not have a agenda at this point except that coming from a visual art and a writing perspective, I have seen similar debates in visual art arena for decades and writers could benefit from some of the perspectives that have been initiated through the debate ... I think it would move things alone at a more interesting pace...

Over the next few months I'm going to explore things like what innovation and experimental are in light of Modernisms frames and the re-reading of those ideas all these years on. What then constitutes innovative work... the role of repetition in work, the value in nuance and the marginalization of it. How women are writing what they are writing, what the ideas are behind this work, what aren't they interested in, what the shifts in that are and then the impacts that has on writing but also thinking in general. I'm a real stickler for living the 'good' theory...
Comments and input greatly appreciated experimental/innovative/postmodern/avant-garde writing