Reinterpretation and rethinking convention must always be moved forward in the contemporary sphere of poetry. Yet Michael Magee's My Angie Dickinson finds disparity in its correlation of "flarf" and reverence for iconoclasm. Magee sets out to honor the powerful, unconventional, and most importantly impious nature of Emily Dickinson, as he states in his foreword, "I was cognizant of the fact that Dickinson's poems, both in form and content, remain surprisingly volatile despite the various historical attempts to keep them more placid." Perhaps a good example of Dickinson's, indeed unconventional form would be, "It was not death; for I stood up:"
It was not death, for I stood up, And all the dead lie down; It was not night, for all the bells Put out their tongues, for noon. It was not frost, for on my flesh I felt siroccos crawl,-- Nor fire, for just my marble feet Could keep a chancel cool.
Dickinson treats death with surreal closeness and strength, while cutting up the traditional stanza with caesura. Yet Magee's work most resurrects this refreshing volatility through, "a process of disorientation and orientation." This process is clearly evidenced in Magee's poem "003:"
Poetry should be happy, NOT all gloomy like ANGIE Dickinson her "deer-in-the-headlights" gaze as---model---after---model walk down three times a year the magical image---of the winter--- fairyland---of a class--- Kate Miller pleasures herself...
Magee deftly disrupts his first line, repeatedly questioning our assumptions of the poem's content and form, determined to strike caesuras into the heart of piety. Thus an attack on piety provides strong ground for a description of Magee's work, his juxtaposition of Dickinson with "ANGIE" Dickinson leading the charge. Magee states just that in his foreword.
Yet in Magee's work his poems seem to sink into a quagmire of means without reaching his end, which we might assume to be the elevation of Dickinson's iconoclasm. Magee desires to generate reverence through "flarf". His poems themselves are even organized like the google search engine which birthed them. Yet the inherent unintentional quality of flarf, in some ways its strength, seems to fall short when matched with such an intentional goal, for instance in poem "095:"
mainstream cinema gravitated from "people" ---like, Keanu Reeves--- and "By the River" ---Styx again--- the loneliness creeps---
The idea of the unintentional manifesting itself in the complex, interconnected world of communication we use today can find some legitimacy. Yet volleys of pop culture references seem inherently inept at garnering praise for Emily Dickinson. The idea of the terrible, woven into flarf, may find its place in poetry yet, but the seriousness of Magee's endeavor trivializes whatever productive poetic vehicle would emanate from such a dialogue between high and low brow culture.
The rupture of the literary canon through lines like "The Hitler-loathing skipper/ In the---Dick Oasis--- (038)" may still provide some worth in their representation of our world, yet become too enamored at their own conception that they fail to see the ends of their existence.
Conor- fantastic post. You do a great job here on many levels-- and have some stunning turns of phrase. I think the issue of means vs. ends may come to the fore in our discussions; we seem to have been circling, for a couple of weeks, the need to clearly define the terms of a work of art as a preliminary to engaging it on ITS OWN terms. You do that very well here.
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