Everyone raves about Elimae, and some of the most precious darlings of the internet press are published there. The name comes from Electronic Literary Magazine. Amazing how they could take something so simple and make it sound pretentious. Cooper Renner, the editor, deemphasizes meaning and emphasizes sound. I think music has a large place in poetry, but without meaning, why use words at all? Why not a guitar or kazoo? Why not simply hum?
The answer is because it’s a lot easier to fool people into thinking you’re a genius if you write this kind of poetry. In between talking to Gordon Lish on the telephone, Cooper Renner fills Elimae with the latest “language-driven” work. Let’s take a look at one of his poets in the latest issue, Stacie Leatherman. This is from her poem “MNPQ”. Where the “O” is I don’t know. Maybe it’s in the New Yorker. This poem doesn’t make much sense, which is according to the aesthetic, and has hardly any direct action or immediacy, as if the person is above trivial matters like life. A lot of people with few worries or imagination like to sit around and write about the BIG PICTURE. The first stanza:
The need for story.
Anyone in range concussive,
Presence of body the oracular,
The disappearing.
Waiting for the next tension.
If you’re here in the recount, breathe.
If you make it through the wind tunnels,
Windows jagged open…
I agree there is a “need for story”, so why doesn’t this poem have one? Because any coherent story would break Renner’s first rule. The second line is worse than the next, as if the poet’s only goal is to confuse you more and more as you go. Mastery! Maybe she is trying to shatter us into spiritual awareness? In line 4 you might wonder what is disappearing. Don’t wonder, just read and applaud. You’ll understand when you’re dead, like they are. Line 5, yes, I am waiting too, for tension, for motion, for life, for anything. Line 6, no idea. Line 7, no idea. Not only is it meaningless, it’s devoid of music too. Line 8, what? I’m surprised she didn’t say “Windows jagged wide shut…”
Sometimes with poems like this you look to the title for clarity, but the title of this poem is “M”. The next 3 parts of the poem comprise almost a hundred more lines of the same crap.
After reading it I decided to submit some of my poems to Elimae.
12 hours later they were rejected. Form rejection of the coldest variety.
So I submitted again. Six hours later, the same cold blooded reject. What in Sam Hill? Was it an automated system? Was I blacklisted? I put together another submission. I simply wrote: “1,2,3” “4,5,6” and “798”. I sent it off. It came back again in about 5 hours, exactly as before. This is Elimae’s mark of distinction: the quick slap of the glove to your face.
Mather Schneider is the author of Drought Resistant Strain (Interior Noise Press, 2009).
The next installment of this column will be on or around 29 October 2009.
