Becoming Post Avant

1. Don't worry about the name. Today, Mathew I shall be Post-Avant. Tomorrow, Mathew, I shall be "Experimental". The day after tomorrow, I shall be Late/Post/Modernist/Innovative/Non-mainstream.

2. Nobody wakes up wanting to be different. Everybody wants to be different. But mostly in ways that are not different, so we can still have some friends.

3. If Faber came knocking, would I say no? Of course, I'd say yes, as long as they didn't want me to write nice anecdotal poems about my holiday in the South of France.

4. It was a pressure in my head that made me finally admit that I was whatever kind of poet it is I think I've become. I had a failing poem that annoyed me so much, as a last resort, I cut it up. Lo! A light came down from heaven illuminating the path I must follow... or something... Rather, I discovered that I didn't have to do the whole thing straight, that going the crooked route was just as interesting.

5. I want to be as clear as possible. But life isn't clear, it comes at you from all kinds of directions at all kinds of speed. And I have to confess that I like, and think that poetry should reflect my experience, rather than try to impose an artificial order on it.

6. How important is the reader? Important enough not to be mollycoddled.