Diasporic avant-gardes : experimental poetics and cultural displacement : [conference held at the University of California, Irvine, 19-20 november 2004

This collection brings together leading scholars to locate experimental strategies in diasporic poetry. Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Introduction....Pages 1-30 Aimé Césaire and the Syntax of Influence....Pages 31-50 Alan Sondheim’s Internet Diaspora....Pages 51-76 Remediation and Diaspora: Kamau Brathwaite’s Video-Style....Pages 77-97 Re-Opening a Poetics of Re-Openings (A.K.A. “Naked Strategic Partners”)....Pages 99-113 On the Outskirts of Form: Cosmopoetics in the Shadow of NAFTA....Pages 115-136 Franco Luambo Makiadi’s Universalism and Avant-Garde Particularity....Pages 137-155 Ah Noh Musik Dat: Speech in the Discourse of Nationalism....Pages 157-172 On the Nomadic Circulation of Contemporary Poetics between Europe, North America, and the Maghreb....Pages 173-188 Diaspora and the Avant-Garde in Contemporary Black British Poetry....Pages 189-206 Something Nation: Radical Spaces of Performance in Linton Kwesi Johnson and Cris Cheek....Pages 207-224 From Spanglish to Glossolalia: Edwin Torres’s Nuyo-Futurist Utopia....Pages 225-242 From Bass Cathedral....Pages 243-251 From Vaduz [Performance Poem]....Pages 253-255 Back Matter....Pages 257-274 Cover 1 Half-Title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Illustrations 8 Acknowledgments and Permissions 10 List of Contributors 12 Introduction 15 1. Aimé Césaire and the Syntax of Influence 45 2. Alan Sondheim’s Internet Diaspora 65 3. Remediation and Diaspora: Kamau Brathwaite’s Video-Style 91 4. re-opening a poetics of re-openings (a.k.a. “naked strategic partners”) 112 5. On the Outskirts of Form: Cosmopoetics in the Shadow of NAFTA 127 6. Franco Luambo Makiadi’s Universalism and Avant-Garde Particularity 149 7. ah noh musik dat: Speech in the Discourse of Nationalism 168 8. On the Nomadic Circulation of Contemporary Poetics between Europe, North America, and the Maghreb 184 9. Diaspora and the Avant-Garde in Contemporary Black British Poetry 200 10. Something Nation: Radical Spaces of Performance in Linton Kwesi Johnson and cris cheek 218 11. From Spanglish to Glossolalia: Edwin Torres’s Nuyo-Futurist Utopia 236 12. from Bass Cathedral 254 13. from Vaduz [performance poem] 263 Bibliography 266 Index 275 Diasporic Avant-Gardes draws into dialogue two differing traditions of poetic practice: the diasporic and the avant-garde. This interdisciplinary collection examines the unacknowledged affinities (and crucial differences) between avant-garde and diasporic formal strategies and social formations. The essays foreground the creation of experimental forms and investigate the specific contexts of cultural displacement and language use that inform their poetics.