One of the first practitioners of pure abstract writing, or radical abstraction, was experimental poet Peter Ganick. In an interview with Steven Meinking, Ganick admits:
The poetry I write is abstract, not non-referential. The Language poets, from who early on I took my model, write non-referential language. This is language that has a relationship to some reference to reality. Namely that of negation. The writing I do is, on the other hand, abstract. Meaning, without relationship to reality. This is its insularity and its vulnerability at the same time. I like to see that the language is a structure that is pure and of-itself. Sort of like the abstractness of mathematics.
By all accounts, Ganick is attempting to expand the innovations of the
Language poets by completely eschewing a relationship to “reality” in his
writing. Ganick’s poetry, if we can call it that, is a project informed by the
intellect, with the intention of generating an intellectualized product. This
makes sense since we live in a machine age, guided by the dictates of computer
algorithms and social media. Perhaps we should acknowledge we no longer live in a
reality-based world. How does an artist confront this new set of circumstances?
And should it be confronted at all?
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