August 3rd, 2010 / 4:56 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Lily Hoang—
The ever-edifying Joyelle McSweeney talks about genre:
So we all think we don’t want genre, we want to be anti-genre or perhaps hybrid, but since these are genres too, let us think about what it means to really go genreless. To go genreless in our contemporary publishing environment is to make a work without a ‘document map’, without a diagram, without a blueprint. Without a sales category. A work such as this has no overview or topography. It can’t be nicely summarized. It cannot be publicized, because it lacks ‘publicity’. In place of publicity it has secrecy, distortion, obscurity, waste. It is a waste product.
I want to make waste products. I want to write them.
And I want to read them. And write them.
me also
If you don’t have a genre for your book, your publisher will come up with one. If nothing else, toss it in with literature.
Emerson’s manysidedness:
(snort if you’re not),
a heart’s labelless,
but tough to swagger in congress.
Every autobiography,
I am, I have, I like,
isn’t it all trite?
We’re effed if we efface our name.
Zens empty, yet
emeralds deface on the teevee,
just be yourself, bobby,
don’t worry.
We take in genre as soon as we are able to read (and probably sooner). Is it possible to produce something that is genre-less, even if that is the intent? (not a rhetorical question, but one I’ve been honestly thinking about). I mean, genre-less but also legible? Individual words carry genre. In poetry, blank spaces do too. Is escape even possible?
I want to make waste products. I want to write them.
And I want to read them. And write them.
me also
If you don’t have a genre for your book, your publisher will come up with one. If nothing else, toss it in with literature.
Emerson’s manysidedness:
(snort if you’re not),
a heart’s labelless,
but tough to swagger in congress.
Every autobiography,
I am, I have, I like,
isn’t it all trite?
We’re effed if we efface our name.
Zens empty, yet
emeralds deface on the teevee,
just be yourself, bobby,
don’t worry.
Awesome, awesome quote. Thanks.
We take in genre as soon as we are able to read (and probably sooner). Is it possible to produce something that is genre-less, even if that is the intent? (not a rhetorical question, but one I’ve been honestly thinking about). I mean, genre-less but also legible? Individual words carry genre. In poetry, blank spaces do too. Is escape even possible?
Everyone who hasn’t read Flet absolutely should. Brilliant book.
I prefer her poetry — there you’ll find more productive use of cut-up and ‘found’ verse, IMHO. It seems much more original. Flet, to me, was just a rehash of Burroughs.
(Not that I wouldn’t love to proven wrong. I really dig her work. Was I missing something?)
Awesome, awesome quote. Thanks.
I’ve been following her for years and as much as I love her poetry—my favorite poem would be Piaf, which I was lucky enough to get a sweet broadside of—I found Flet, and to a lesser extent, Nylund, the Sarcographer, to be even more surprising, lyrical, and truly experimental.
I don’t know much about her creative process, but I actually never thought of Burroughs reading her fiction; instead of cut-up and found verse, it seemed to me she was relying upon the energy of sound and association to propel her words forward—similar to a rapper except she wouldn’t go so far as to have the words rhyme. It’s a common enough occurrence in experimental fiction to, rather than outline ahead of time the course of a novel, let the words dictate the flow, but it was how she arrived at the words in the first place that truly impressed me. I mentioned Piaf, and I believe that poem predicts this method, although she does say in a reading of it that it’s a sonnet for which she was given the end rhymes. Check it out here:
http://vimeo.com/1266791
Everyone who hasn’t read Flet absolutely should. Brilliant book.
I prefer her poetry — there you’ll find more productive use of cut-up and ‘found’ verse, IMHO. It seems much more original. Flet, to me, was just a rehash of Burroughs.
(Not that I wouldn’t love to proven wrong. I really dig her work. Was I missing something?)
I’ve been following her for years and as much as I love her poetry—my favorite poem would be Piaf, which I was lucky enough to get a sweet broadside of—I found Flet, and to a lesser extent, Nylund, the Sarcographer, to be even more surprising, lyrical, and truly experimental.
I don’t know much about her creative process, but I actually never thought of Burroughs reading her fiction; instead of cut-up and found verse, it seemed to me she was relying upon the energy of sound and association to propel her words forward—similar to a rapper except she wouldn’t go so far as to have the words rhyme. It’s a common enough occurrence in experimental fiction to, rather than outline ahead of time the course of a novel, let the words dictate the flow, but it was how she arrived at the words in the first place that truly impressed me. I mentioned Piaf, and I believe that poem predicts this method, although she does say in a reading of it that it’s a sonnet for which she was given the end rhymes. Check it out here:
http://vimeo.com/1266791
Ha! Cool, thanks for the link…. I should stress I have no idea how she wrote those books; She’s mentioned cut-up and ‘found’ lines in reference to her poetry. I assumed with Flet she took a huge multipronged approach. (Have you read Soft Machine? Very Flet-esque). My phone seems to be malfunctioning. Thanks again for the link…
I remember Joyelle saying that she wrote Flet & Nylund simultaneously. Pretty amazing, though that’s just what she is: amazing.
Ha! Cool, thanks for the link…. I should stress I have no idea how she wrote those books; She’s mentioned cut-up and ‘found’ lines in reference to her poetry. I assumed with Flet she took a huge multipronged approach. (Have you read Soft Machine? Very Flet-esque). My phone seems to be malfunctioning. Thanks again for the link…
I remember Joyelle saying that she wrote Flet & Nylund simultaneously. Pretty amazing, though that’s just what she is: amazing.