langauge poets attack my self esteem

(haha I've been reading stevens, myself.)

"Can you believe the backward folks on this ILX site?"

I think there were some other things. Maybe I will dig out his responses later to see if I can figure out what else I asked. I was in college at the time. I don't think what I wrote him was particularly brilliant, and most of the theoretical stuff just went past me (as it still does, though I am much more suspicious of it than I was then). To some of my questions he said, I've already discussed this extensively, so read some of that first, and then if you still have questions, write back, which was reasonable enough.

Anyway langpo helps you figure out what you want a text to do, and that is why you should read it, Anthony: because some of it is unreadable. (Or is it?)

And then later, in a shorter note: "I don't know to what degree you have a sense of humor about the letter you sent--but I had to take it (in part) that way: 'I wonder about the side-effects of your writing': you sound a little like a Burroughs character after a session w/ Dr. Benway. I don't, by the way, consider my writing 'unreadable' in the sense Burroughs presumably means. . . Happy [ier!] reading to you--"

I guess it was Burroughs that I had quoted. "Happy" has a little arrow pointing to "ier!"

I am not trying to convince you not to look at it, however. Ron Silliman's In the American Tree seems like one of the most representative collections. From the Other Side of the Century also includes a variety of this material, though it's not soley devoted to language poetry. Maybe someone who actually likes it can recommend more recent starting points.