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| Response & Bio | T.J. Gerlach |
| Question
#7) Ron Silliman also argues that “A work without genre makes
no sense – not simply because the term is derived from
genus, the root for kind, but because to achieve such a state
a work would have to cancel out or erase its own sense of form & integrity
as it proceeded, constantly dissolving before the reader, & that
of itself would constitute its genre.” Can we have a
writing that is free from genre distinctions or would it constantly
dissolve for the reader in ways that Silliman suggests? That
is, would even this dissolution constitute a genre? Moreover,
do you feel that by writing prose poems or flash fictions you
are consciously resisting certain social divisions and hierarchies
manifested in generic literary distinctions? That is, does
this form enable (perhaps require) you to make a political
statement about form and genre? The
intertwining of genre and politics is a sticky issue. On the one
hand, it is nice to think of art as a space where social critique
and progress can take place. Yet some of the status quo elements
inherent in notions like “form” and “genre” are
the very things that enable art to function, to have any meaning
at all. For me the most effective works are able to have it both
ways. They may blur, or dissolve genre distinctions, but they also
reaffirm the pleasure to be had in them. I think of the Jorge Luis
Borges and Adolfo Bioy-Casares collaboration Six Problems for Don
Isidro Parodi, which is a brief, but encyclopedic, send-up of almost
every trope of the detective genre while simultaneously being a
damn good page-turner. Or a little gem like Ron Carlson’s “Disclaimer” which
comments on the obvious fiction behind the rhetoric of a “disclaimer” to
devastating emotional effect. Bio: T.J. Gerlach has an M.F.A from the University of Utah and a Ph.D. from the University of Denver where he currently teaches. His current project is a novel set in Chicago called The Way the World Ends. |
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