more on silence?

maybe the point is not to shut-up, but perhaps to start a different kind of conversation. I am thankful to those who, like Barbara Jane, are starting new conversations. Perhaps those silenced by some of the other conversations happening around the Spahr/Young Chicago Review article will participate in these new conversations.

As a feminist, I am compelled to decline the labels "experimental" and "avant garde." I have been attracted to these labels -- not just because of a desire to connect with artists I admire, but also vanity. I feel increasingly uncomfortable and embarrassed about this.

As one thinks through the hurt that comes from being excluded from or even being accepted into communities in which hierarchy, taste distinctions, and the possession of cultural capital matter, one has to decline affiliation.

It bears emphasizing that one can disaffiliate from these terms without any slackening in one's attention to experimentation in language.

I am interested in an emancipatory social project engaged with poem making.