A discussion on the nature of contemporary poetry entitled:

The Passing of the Modern Poet,
And our asking ourselves,
‘Be Headed Where?”

My opening contribution to this open forum is a short paper entitled:

	The Ocean of ‘Contemporary’ Poetry –
			A Small ‘c’ or a Large ‘C’?

	Both the card player and the card shark in a game of poker can, when the time is right, reveal their hand. With a glance all can see the cards now laid flat on the table. On the other hand, the philosopher can only discuss some of the cards they metaphorically hold next to their chest, and, such a discussion, moreover, takes place in the precious confines of time. I would love to tell you ‘what I am up to,’ but, suffice to say, that although I am interested in the nature of contemporary poetry, in my constructive efforts as a poet, should such a distinctive phenomenon as ‘contemporary poetry’ exist, I am even more interested in the nature of  ‘contemporary philosophy’ and coming to know its ‘place’ in the even wider sphere of ‘contemporary culture’ on the understood presupposition that the distinctive aesthetic of the times permeates all forms of cultural creativity authentically re-created within the confines of that culture.

	Am I right in believing that, recently, there has been a sea-change in our cultural complexion, not just in Australia, and other English speaking countries, but on a global international level? A change that moves us further from the Modern Era, on past a Postmodern Era, arriving at what I would like to call, not being able to find a more convenient term, a contemporary  ‘Contemporary Era.’ I believe the answer to that question is a loud “yes!”  In my opinion there has been this shift in cultural patterns, but, being in the midst of this gradual shift in scenery will we be able to see it, hitherto more or less unrecognized? Hopefully, this paper will successfully argue for this observation and create enough contrast to help us appreciate the differentiation of some of its finer detail?

	Recently, a critic for the Sydney Morning Herald, John MacDonald, in his last contribution to the paper before retiring argued for the use of the term ‘contemporary’ to label art produced recently (‘art’ we must assume that is creatively arrived at and not merely derivatively produced, or rather, ‘re-produced.’) Hence, e.g., the appellation of the Museum for Contemporary Art at Circular Quay in Sydney.

	Of course some people will carp that all art, in whatever era, is by definition ‘contemporary art,’ necessarily contemporary with the time of its production. At the end of this paper I will argue why this title, with a large ‘C’ is apposite.

	In a very recent paper of mine, on the nature of postmodern culture, I argued for four distinctive characteristics in the manifestation of a postmodern aesthetic, namely:

1.	A relatively exaggerated sense of self-reflexivity on a textual level.

2.	Increased invocation of other genres overall and in passing.

3.	Increased use of non-relevant subtexts from a textual point of view.

4.	Exhibition of deconstructive tendencies from tensions in the text.

	In essence I was arguing for an increased meta-textual orientation of the text, i.e., an increased interest and emphasis on the genre of that text, its title and introduction, its sense of being framed, its extra-textual associations, its textual commenting on the text itself along with the defining of its definitions, its attempts to conclude and find some sense of closure. In essence its various attempts to ‘mis’-represent that text from the level of its apparent textual point of view along with an increasing awareness of this increasing sense of misrepresentation. ‘Misrepresentation’ on the grounds that the meta-text being ‘about’ that text in its attempts to re-produce that text can never exactly, or accurately, reproduce it. Hence misrepresenting it. But, the trick in our being able to overcoming this process of misrepresentation is that when we come to understand the nature of that misrepresentation then that text can no longer misrepresent itself to us to the same extent and in the same fashion.

	One of the features of a postmodern text is the increasing self-reflexive nature displayed on a meta-textual level. In The Simpsons we find the characters discussing violence in cartoons, telling us ‘the show still has 28 seconds to go,’ or Bart telling Lisa that ‘she is not a cartoon character,’ etc.

	In a contemporary text this reflexivity is now no longer covert, and occasional, but overt, and continual if not continuous. In other words the dramatis personae are constructed in such a manner so as to directly engage the audience, in so much as that is in effect appears to be possible, i.e., in virtual, or simulated, terms of reference.

	In this same paper of mine, indirectly referred to, on the subject of postmodernism, I also mentioned the example in the recent movie Conspiracy Theory where the hero each time he uses violence apologizes,  as if these acts of political incorrectness committed in front of the audience should be verbally atoned for. The habit is catching and even the heroine ends up doing the same too!

	In my opinion the cartoon series South Park is very much an exemplar of what I am hopefully coming to see as the characteristic features of what distinctively constitutes a ‘contemporary’ text, or rather, a contemporary instance of a Contemporary text with a large ‘C’. In this task I am also hoping to enlist your help. Asking ourselves does this cultural phenomenon exist, and if so, in what form? In this process helping me to thematize the necessary hermeneutic material that will allow us to successfully understand the nature of our subject matter. Should I feel alone in this regard?

	In this same paper as previously alluded to I spoke of the distinctive differences between a modern text like The Flintstones and a postmodern text like The Simpsons. I would like to extend this schema to note that, as mentioned, South Park appears to be a prime example of what a contemporary text should ‘look’ like.

	This brings me to note a second characteristic of what I believe helps to constitute a contemporary text, namely, the increased role ‘simulation’ plays within a text. 

Just recently, after an episode in South Park; where the chef of the school cafeteria is sued by a large record company for harassing them over their using of one of his songs from twenty years ago, a second program discusses in a documentary-like style how this fictitious cartoon character ‘actually’ came  to help various popular musical groups, got their careers off the ground, etc. In this first cartoon show this chef character is successfully sued for two million dollars by this large record company. Coming to his rescue various leading figures in the pop world of music, such as Elton John, stage a concert entitled Chef Aid. After this first cartoon show, in a pseudo-documentary style, these ‘real’ characters discuss how this ‘unreal’ cartoon character helped them in the past. In all this there is a sense of simulation for the sake of simulation, a sense of simulation where any form of simulation is as real as any other form, although it stands to reason forms of simulation are not equally fruitful. All this kerfuffle over the predicament the chef finds himself in also masquerading  as a very, very lengthy advertising segment for a musical CD from the South Park series entitled “Chef Aid.”

A Postmodern playing around with frames of reference is one thing, the acceptance of an equality between frames of reference is quite something else! In a recent ABC production let me illustrate both of these characteristics, or orientations, which can be found to be more prevalent in a contemporary text?

In a series about ‘the behind the scenes in the staging of the year 2000 Olympics in Sydney’ we have been presented with a very witty spoof or send up of a number of issues that have arisen in the real progress of these preparations. For a start the format is our watching what camera-persons are actually recording as these busy people go about their daily machinations. From time to time these dramatis  personae can be seen actually talking to these camera-persons (necessitating the implicit presence of more camera-persons, no doubt), and on many other occasions these dramatis personae can be seen actually talking to us the audience. Their ‘performance’ is arranged in such a manner that appears to purport their actual ongoing awareness of us the audience. Here we have a number of frames of reference given more or less an equality with each other, along with an apparent direct engagement of the audience. No ‘asides’ here in a Shakespearean sense, rather, the full engagement with an audience, albeit a ‘virtual’ audience.

Now this is all very well but what does this have to do with our coming to an understanding of what might be present in a ‘contemporary’ poetic text?

In this day and age we no longer have a canon of poetic texts recently produced acting as a common reference point for the appreciation of contemporary society by a contemporary society. However, we do have an apparent cannon, however temporary, in the field of  the popular visual media, namely, television. Moreover, the realization of our possible appreciation of the contemporary aesthetic can then be applied to other fields, e.g., poetry, philosophy, and more generally to the overall field of culture itself. This, I might add, is no easy task, as traditionally this type of subject has been brought to our attention by historians, and then retrospectively, often some time after the event! On this occasion, with your help, let us see if we can come to a contemporary appreciation of the Contemporary assuming we can come to some form of an agreement of what might constitute that phenomenon should it be found to exist?

On the poetic level of contemporary culture I believe we can note two more features of this phenomenon I am arguing for, namely, a greater use of the vernacular and the portrayed involvement of an explicit existential sense of the present.

Language in South Park is quite often in your face. Actions displayed or implicitly indicated are equally often in your face. How do they get away with such murder, metaphorically and literally. The repeated death of Kenny is not so offensive when you realize it is only a simulated death, you will find him again in the next episode, where again he will be ‘killed off’ so to speak. As a simulation it is not quite so offensive. Equally language is only being simulated. These naughty children, almost as if they are aware of an adult audience, say things that upset adults. They, being children, don’t quite know the meaning of what they say and do, although being somewhat aware that what they do might upset adults. Of course it is only children speaking and performing in front of us. We cannot expect them to be politically correct, or, only appear to be politically correct, like adults. Never the less, it is adults who have written the script for our enjoyment as adults. The fact that children might enjoy this cartoon show too is almost as if an after thought.

What might be meant by the text being rooted in an ‘existential sense of the present?’ I had hoped you might be able to explain that one for me. But let me attempt an explanation, or at least the start of one.

I have theoretical grounds for arguing this matter. Suffice to say, to save myself a long, tortuous and very involved rendering of this theoretical basis, to merely say that the textual is oriented towards the retrospectivity of the past and that the meta-textual is oriented towards the prospectivity of the future. On the other hand the engagement of the text in its actual moment of being read is an existential affair rooted in the existential sense of the present! When we are actually reading it is as if the text disappears and we find in its simulation unfolding before us our metaphorical ability to see through that text. In this moment of the non-textual, so to speak, we are rooted in the ongoing sense of the present. When we come to a part of the text that is missing or difficult to understand it is as if we hit a wall, find ourselves met by a blank space, enter a period of opaque or translucent wondering. A wondering of what might be meant there, or what was intended or really meant to be physically present in that text. 

This moment of the ‘non-textual,’ I believe arises through the balanced interplay of our appreciation of the textual and the meta-textual. A past orientation and a future orientation go hand and hand to forge a sense of ‘presence’ in the simulation of the present, albeit a simulated sense of presence, the simulated presence of that text, or its content, along with its virtual audience and a sense of apparent authorial intent. Hence in a contemporary text we would expect a re-orientation upon the ongoing sense of the present as it unfolds in our engagement with that text. Hence in contemporary poetry one would expect, therefore, an emphasis upon the vernacular, direct language as uttered by that community of speakers being simulated, a language ostensibly stripped of literary artifices.

Hence, in this observation, we might also find good grounds for the re-using and re-defining this term ‘contemporary’ to label this current era as Contemporary, rather than adopting some other cumbersome term like, e.g., ‘post-post-modern,’ ‘trans-postmodern,’ ‘neo-modern,’ etc?

To sum up let me list these four distinctive features as discussed in this paper. Then I would like to tell a short fairy story illustrating these transitions in recent culture. Finally, let me read a short poem, recently written by myself, that I feel might be seen as at least heading towards this sense of the contemporary?

These four distinctive characteristics noted were:

1.	Direct engagement of the (virtual) audience by the dramatis personae, or their    
literary equivalent.

2.	A sense of simulation qua simulation, with, more or less, an equivalence set up between these various worlds of simulation, or their literary equivalent.

3.	A use of the vernacular along with the use of direct speech.

4. 	The overt representation of an existential sense of the present.

Let me now tell a short fairy story to illustrate the differences between the Modern Era, the Postmodern Era that we have apparently just left, and the current Contemporary era…

Once upon a time there was a king in a lovely castle-palace on the top of a small 
hill with a township spread out below it. 
Unfortunately, this township became industrialized. The king appalled at the ruining of the landscape got the windows of this castle-palace bricked up and the space where the windows had been covered over by a set of beautiful landscape paintings.
A number of years later there was a democratic revolution and the monarchy was dissolved. The castle-palace now became a museum. 
As, as has often happened in more recent times, the curator of this museum, like many others, became inspired by postmodern influences and staged, among other things, an exhibition of picture frames where these romantic landscapes usually hang – picture frames on an angle, picture frames themselves that were works of art, frames with texts about frames, frames with meta-texts about framing, etc., etc. A popular exhibition for the more fashionable elites.
Then a world war was declared and during this conflict this gallery got reduced to 
a pile of rubble. 
	After this dreadful world war came to an end, in time, the palace-castle got restored, or rather rebuilt. Inside, however, there were now no artistic exhibits, beside the ‘original’ décor accurately reconstructed, only a gigantic simulator – banks of television screens, special items for the simulation of cyber-space, etc. By these means the entire history of the complex could be viewed. In virtual space the viewer could wander around and view various exhibitions, both old and new. Even chat to other virtual viewers who also were currently engaged in the viewing of the same virtual works of art. On some occasions even getting to chat with the artists themselves.
And everyone lived happily ever afterwards, going to this museum, from time to 
time, to experience and appreciate both the latest exhibitions in culture and re-created exhibitions from the past…

I do not wish to unravel this fairy story, I shall leave that for your own pleasure.

	To conclude let me read a short poem that, I believe, has some of these features that characterizes a contemporary text…

It’s All A Dream?

We all live on a slippery slope,
like walking on thin ice,
that sweet slice of life 
one bite away from disaster:-
shifting house, without a flat;
sickness, and loss of health;
fell under a passing bus;
missed the last step
going downstairs,
and still going downhill;
no money till the next pay,
and that day - date unknown;
unexpected loss of job, 
have y’been made redundant,
one more time, 
y’already know
what it feels like,
fired by the boss,
struck off some roll
or weighty register,
even excommunicated,
sent to Coventry, or worse,
filmed by television
and already pre-censured
for some social crime or other,
committed or not committed,
it can only get worse..?
	
You pinch y’self – it’s all a dream…

Yet, life’s like that:-
the missed opportunity;
failure in that last exam; 
ultimate expulsion,
deleted from the telephone book;
a final dribble of mail
left unread, thrown away;	
thankfully, a few last bills	
you didn’t have to pay for
up front..?

In this poem the anxiety of an imminent disaster is dreamt about. Then this simulation of experience is seen as a dream, ‘it’s all a dream.’ Then, the nature of ‘reality’ is seen as equally unpredictable and disastrous, with an equation being made between these frames of experiential reference. In this poem I have also tried to use language closer to the vernacular. Moreover, I have centered this poem in the simulation of the existential presence of this unfolding sense of anxiety that concerns itself with the certain imminent arrival of some as yet unknown disaster or disasters. Lastly, I would like to note that, through my use of language, with the use of the first person plural, and even more in the use of the second person plural, that the audience of this poem is being directly addressed.

	Well, let me now take a back seat and listen to what the other speakers in this forum have to say on this topic of contemporary poetry? Thanking you for your attention and your comments…

								          Noel Tointon, 1.12.98.