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By: DB Cox (Guest IP 75.138.60.240) on 06-08-2007 23:15

A pertinent question about this manifesto might be: Where is the clear line between the so-called “outlaws” (an unfortunate label that only seems to further promote factionalism) and the hard-to-define, nebulous “academics”.    One thing that differentiated the avant-garde from the mainstream in the old days was that the regular publishers wouldn’t publish non-conformist writers, and they were more or less a small group. Now you have a situation where a writer as exotic as Donald Barthelme gets published right from the beginning of his career in places like New Yorker Magazine. And the New Yorker is also hospitable to writers like Borges and Gabriel Garcia Márquez.     If the notion of “avant-garde” (or fill in the romantic/outsider label of choice) art means anything, it is defined by its hostility to accepted artistic standards and values. The very success of Publishers such as Grove Press in selling “The Beats” (another meaningless label) hastened the decline of the “avant-garde” by broadening the audience for, and hence increasing the tolerance of, nontraditional art, absorbing it into the tradition, blurring the distinctions between the established literary standard and the works of the counterculture. Another words, the elements of the Beat Generation were absorbed into the mainstream.     The avant-garde has always represented rebellion against convention. As rebelliousness has become more and more commonplace, as conformity has been replaced with more open and unconventional lifestyles (from “the beats” to “the hippies” to “the punks”… etc.), the stark contrast that existed between the outsiders and the insiders has faded to the point of insignificance.    In my opinion, this section of the manifesto speaks in the clearest and most concise voice:     “We will find those like us, and in the end will travel the road together. Looking beyond the shards, we see something deeper, something higher, something enduring. We will find those like us, and in the end will travel the road together. Looking beyond the shards, we see something deeper, something higher, something enduring.”    On the Road with “those like us” looking beyond the shards for something deeper, something higher, something enduring. Factionless—poets all…     hopeless rainmakers  launching strange songs  into bone-white skies  common tones  painted with  smoke & thunder  voodoo illusions  lost in heat-layered  streets of confusion  shadow shakers  dancing naked  in that empty space  between savage  & savior—  wild dogs  howling at the door  of the madhouse

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