Knowing of the existence of Cooper Renner in the world makes me feel a little better a lot of days. For all the baggage that comes along with certain types of figureheads or editors, Cooper is not only one of the quickest and most likable sorts of people around, he also has carried the aesthetic of the online lit journal elimae into a benchmark not only for great online writing, but for post-Lish, sentence-driven new work. Elimae, created and launched by Deron Bauman, has been under Renner’s care since the end of 2004, and continually updates once each month with slews of the new. Cooper also is involved with Ravenna Press, who has released books by Kim Chinquee, Norman Lock, Brandon Hobson, and many others important language-driven authors.
In addition to all this, Cooper is also a writer doing the new, with a recent book out of his own poems, Mosefolket, some of which appeared in Lish’s the Quarterly.
A truly massive person (fit in a small frame) I talked to Cooper about a lot of the above, including his editorial leanings, correspondences, future works, and so on.
1. You were in the Quarterly years ago and I believe had mail correspondence with Lish at points? How did his enterprise or presence or etc. affect you as a writer? Who else has affected you?
I am still in contact with Lish. In fact I had a postcard from him either yesterday or Monday. We write back and forth pretty much all the time. I’ve talked to him a few times on the phone, but we’ve never met in person. Most of our contact is on the page. Gordon and Deron Bauman are the two folks who really showed me how to edit my own stuff, zeroing in on the strong language rather than what I ‘wanted to say’. They taught me how to divorce any sociological idea of content from the artistry of how the words work.
More after the break…
Blake Butler is the single most selfish individual on the face of this earth. Blake Butler often smells of fatty oils and spits when he talks. I don’t understand how any one finds value in his writing.
I think I realized yesterday that all people really need in a forum is a placeholder under the illusion of an idea so that they have somewhere to argue and get their big O open.