Entry 445 — Vaudevillic Poetry
I’ve coined another term, “Vaudevillic Poetry,” for what I’ve been calling “Jump-Cut Poetry.” This is a somewhat derogatory term inspired by my bias against short-attention span art, the kind of art that presents discontinuous acts. It reminds me of why I never much liked television variety shows like Ed Sullivan’s when young, and have rarely looked forward to visits to museums. Lots of fun stuff but within an hour I start getting a headache. I’m too much of a convergent thinker, I guess.
Lately I’ve decided that the “language poetry” now gaining Official Recognition is really not much different from Ashbery’s vaudevillic poetry, so really is not extending what the academy recognizes as poetry of value. Ergo, Wilshberia remains the only part of the contemporary American poetry continuum the Poetry Establishment has any really knowledge of.
Additional note: I’m renaming “Sprungrammatical Poetry” “Grammar-Centered Poetry.” Accessibility and all that. So: in my taxonomy, there are two kinds of Language poetry: grammar-centered and infraverbal. I’m thinking, too, that there are two kinds of vaudevillic poetry: phrase-length and sentence-length. “Jumbled-Text” may be a third–one beyond Wilshberia. But possibly beyond what I conceive as poetry, as well–i.e., hyperhermetic or Steinian, if you consider her short texts poems (although I feel I get some of them).