David Antin

ISBN: 978-0-9864965-1-6
28 pp
$8
Scream 2010

Excerpt:

but

maybe that’s the problem with the notion of the avant-garde

that it turns itself from a discourse into a tradition

whose members worry about its decline in a threatening

future      and maybe thats why i’m such a poor avant-gardist

because i’m mainly concerned with the present      which

if i can find it      might let me know what to do      and as for

the future      it will find us all by itself      whether we look

backwards or forwards it will be there at the top of the

stairs      meanwhile i want to occupy the present

Note:

Originally published in a book of the same name by New Directions in 1993, this text originated as a talk at the symposium Perspectives on the Avant-Garde held at the University of Iowa in 1981. Republished in 2010 by The Emergency Response Unit for the Scream Literary Festival.