I tried to repeat my happy experience of last week at Subterranean Books. But of course it wasn't the same: the weather was worse, the music playing in the store was worse; the week before I had bought the books that were most attractive to me. I had to listen to an urgent and intense conversation about politics while browsing, the kind of conversation I could neither join--since I didn't know the people involved--nor ignore. I ended up buying two volumes of the "Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative American Poetry," one of Messerli's earnest and valuable projects. This is the worst way for me to read poetry: in large anthologies of many poets, represented by one poem each. I need critical mass: I can't just read one poem by Fannie Howe, one poem by Peter Gizzi, etc... I started getting cranky: if these are "awards," and Messerli's own poem is in the book, does that mean he gave an award to himself? I think in fact he SHOULD give an award to himself for the great things he's published over the years, but it's a little like saying "Jonathan Mayhew has been awarded the Jonathan Mayhew blog award." Creeley has a poem in there that does

"Practice
your humility
elsewhere
'cause it's just another

excuse for privilege
another place not
another's, another
way you get to get."

Self-anthologization presents a unique dilemma in any case. You couldn't have the American tree without Silliman: he is such a major player in the scene he is describing. You couldn't have the anthology of the New York School without editors Padgett and Shapiro. Could you have the Hoover Norton Anthology of Postmodern Poetry without Hoover? What would be the criterion for deciding that? Do Rothenberg and Joris need to be in Poems for the Millenium? (Probably they do, because of the personal and unique nature of that kind of book. They would be in it even if they weren't in it.) Messerli is an interesting enough writer that I don't begrudge him this self-award. The criterion would have to be: "if someone else were doing the anthology, would they include him in it?" I think probably yes. The real criterion, in any case, is one of community. There are poems here that are not necessarily "innovative," but are written by people associated with the post-avant-garde poetry community.