i don't know what it is but. . .

from silliman's links i find amy king is asking who are the most innovative poets. king got a lot of responses. the question is useful but doesn't it all boil down to naming our favorite poets? what's the criteria for innovative writing? ain't it like asking who are the hardest rocking bands now? sure, i can list hard rocking bands but my list would be what i think these bands might be and so my list would be about my favorite bands.

what do i know anyway? i try to eschew such classifications myself even if my ears are cocked toward what i think is experimental writing. i was just reading a short essay by a young poet, will grofic, that i just ran across thru my surfing the aether, why write poetry? grofic's post is unrelated to king's query but grofic is a young poet just beginning who is trying to situate himself in the totality of the history of writing. which is a reason for list-making, a defining of the times and our places in history.

these are daunting tasks. an exhaustive list of innovative writing would be vast and each name is mumbled among the seas of our poetries. much like grofic's wondering how to write well and why write at all when we will mostly likely be writing to and perhaps for oblivion.

as for poetries i don't know what it is but i like it. i try to make my own definitions but often fail miserably. as another poet, steven waling, just wrote about his own practice, just follow your nose. that i try to do all the time. my tastes range from this to that and all in between. whenever i attempt any sort of definitions for anything i fail. we all probably do, and hope that we fail better for the tasks we make.