"LANGUAGE poets uncovered some really beneficial weapons to use. The problem is, I think they were more interested in sharpening them than using them, as you hint. To me, their work often becomes esoteric at best and, at worst, grotesquely incestual. I’m thinking specifically of a reading a former LANGUAGE poet extraordinaire gave in Athens last year, in which they read 'white dialect poems.' I was embarrassed to be in the room. It was a perfect example of what I find frustrating at the core of a lot of LANGUAGE poetics and their conceptualist counterparts: a game that turns into self-aggrandizement for the sake of empowering an already too-prolific voice, usually in the name of 'irony.'" Jake Syersak in conversation with James Eidson • Ghost Proposal

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