CatherinE, There is definitely a problem involving engagement with experimental writing, both practically and as a matter of personality. And I think you raise a lot of questions that shouldn't remain rhetorical. Since I'm emptying my pockets of change today, here's another two cents:
> Can criticism be poetry? Of course. I would even take it further and suggest that it ought to be as often as appropriate (and I can't think of a moment when it wouldn't be appropriate). > What is the role of criticism in new/experimental writing? The same as its role in other forms of writing. I don't say that flippantly, or as a pat answer. I really think a lot of the reason why you don't see an abundance of good writing about new/experimental/newmedia/hypermedia/etc etc ad absurdum ad infinitum is because this question is being asked. If critics would stop asking that question start writing criticism it would be moot. There is no vocabulary in place with which to properly discuss these things? They can invent their own or make new use of what they have. I believe poetry is the attempt to express in language that which language is incapable of expressing. So a criticism that is also poetry is what's most needed right now--if there's a need for a more active critical system. > What would experimental criticism, as a counterpart to experimental > writing, look like? Traditionally you can recognize the difference between a poem and a criticism by how it looks on the page. One looks like a poem, one looks like a prose. Should that change for experimental things that maybe don't look like a poem? It can, if it wants to or needs to. I don't think it needs to. I think criticism of experimental writing could do quite well looking like prose and reading like prose. Prose is really good at the things that criticism intends. And I don't see anything in experimental writing whose criticism is uncontainable within a prose constraint. But, if it were to develop along other lines then by all means it would tend towards... > Should criticism be more like call&response in form? a call & response, or a collaboration (maybe a short lived one--a single ping and a single pong, and that's it). And in a way I think it could be argued that all art is that way, a response, a criticism, to somethings else, a collaboration that is continuous and takes place over the whole of time. But I don't think that's what you're meaning, exactly, so I should rein myself in here. I think criticism should help interested readers decide if they should explore the work being criticized themselves. There's too damned much brilliant work out there for me to see it all. I want a critical writing to allow me to leverage the critics time and effort and education and ability to connect threads into an overall efficiency savings for me. I don't have to agree with the critic, I just need to know from reading them, if I have any business with the piece(s) being written about. > Is criticism collaboration? Absolutely. In many cases directly between creator and critic (some of whom consider themselves Creator), but in any case in the larger sense of forming a body of information around an idea that can be dipped into usefully by others. > Experimental writing doesn't mean there aren't differences of opinion or > taste after all. No, it sure doesn't. But of all the writing communities I've been involved in, the experimental writers I know are the most touchy when it comes to differences of opinion, in broad general terms. There are plenty of exceptions on all sides. But dropping a well placed criticism into the middle of a bunch of experimental poets is going to cause a lot more psychic disturbance than dropping a comparable criticism into the middle of any other group that I have experience with. Critical conversations (see "Godwin's law") tend to devolve into name calling and pouting and kicking the dirt and taking my ball home, that's human nature it seems. But in an group of experimental writers, I think the tendency is even more pronounced. I think it has a lot to do with risk though, too, and the nature of creativity. If a traditional poet is taking a risk in showing others their works, the experimental poet is taking a much larger risk. The form could be enough to get the content dismissed, and having the content of something personally created dismissed is extremely difficult to separate from being personally dismissed. It would be like someone telling you you were a big fat jerk for driving a car that you invented to run on unrecycleable trash. The initial response is not "but what about the car?" it's "I'm a jerk?" And every piece of creativity inducing information I've ever seen says it's essential for the full flowing of most creativities to keep the critical mind and even criticism itself (by the self or others) as far away from the creating as possible. It kills creativity the way explaining a joke isn't funny. So you create a space like this where people post fresh work and post critique too and you have a very unstable environment. Dan
