Blaser

a way Blaser can be declarative, thoughtful, reasoning and not just be opinionated. build on an attention to language. it is easy enough to step forth into propaganda, manipulation of the reader. I see procedural poetry, and langpo's utter questioning, to be ways to subvert that manipulation. the capital 'I' doesn't necessarily mean the poetry is bad, you can look at O'Hara, or Bernadette Mayer, or John Wieners, or or or, to find ways in which poetry can exist without subletting 'your' piece of the language. but take a look at the Good Walt Whitman, or Allen Ginsberg, and the Bad versions of each (let alone the many perfectly BAD poets, as published, say, by Poetry Chi-town) and see the reasons for attempting to subvert that 'I'.powerful poem by Blaser called "Even on Sunday". it's so thoughtful, allusive, pragmatic even, yet lovely withal.

"the manipulated incompetences of public thought" (just heard on the news how the gov't ('ours') has rethought its recommendation for good cholesterol levels, promoting much greater use of the various cholesterol-lowering drugs, which seems so ventriloquistic: gov't speaking for drug companies, Peter Jennings speaking for gov't)

"the language behind language that no one has ever spoken"

"'Listen you assholes, a metaphysical washout means you've lost yoiur topsoil'"

The Holy Forest, Coach House Press, 1993.

the intro, by the bye, is by Robert Creeley, yet is fairly lucid nonetheless. his intros and blurbs too often sound like pretentious hack work