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Guillaume Apollinaire

by Mickie Kennedy

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) played a central part in the avant-garde movement that swept through the French literary and artistic circles during the early 20th century. Much of his early history is unknown, and even the origin of his original name remains clouded by contradictions. Like Gertrude Stein, his work was influenced by the Cubist movement in the arts. The book Alcools, written in 1913, is considered his greatest work, darting from formal poems (like alexandrines and regular stanzas) to those devoid of rhyme, regularity, and punctuation.  Read more »

L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E P=O=E=T=R=Y

by Mickie Kennedy

“[L]inear chronological autobiographical narrative is bullshit,” Ron Silliman, from “Albany.”

“Goal is not to have a goal,” John Cage.

“For modern poetry, since it must be distinguished from classical poetry and from any type of prose, destroys the spontaneously functional nature of language, and leaves standing only its lexical basis,” Roland Barthes, from Writing Degree Zero.

“Narrativity is short-circuited from the moment the reading process is spatialized,” Jerome McGann
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