Written on the Body

So because this blog is anonymous I can admit this without being flogged: I don’t really like postmodernism. I don’t like the theory; I don’t like the work that results from it. I think it can be fun and experimental but at this point it’s doing more harm than good to the literary world. It seems like nothing new has come of out it since the 60’s, though we’re not supposed to admit this because every time a writer does something weird we call it inventive. But it’s not. It’s been done. I’ve been trying to be less of a bitch about the whole thing by looking into what poets are actually doing right now and I have come to a hopeful conclusion: I think the internet might be saving postmodernism.

I’d like to present Exhibit A, an online piece called Status Update by Darren Wershler and Bill Kennedy. The poem takes status updates from a Facebook RRS feed and attaches them to names of famous writers, creating a poem that is ever in flux. Thus we get lines like “John Keats has the Grey Poupon” and “Samuel Taylor Coleridge is going to eat a soft-boiled egg and contemplate really good design.” Not only are the randomness and humour of Facebook status updates brought to light, but it raises questions of how the medium of writing has changed. Can we even compare the works of Robert Frost or Lord Byron with the hoards of autobiographical snippets we see every day on the internet? If Dante Rossetti was on Facebook, would his status updates be just as naval-gazing and silly as the ones compiled in the poem?

The same writers have also compiled another online poem called apostrophe, which googles the net for phrases starting with “you are” and puts them into a block of text. If you click on any line the poem will reboot and rewrite itself. The project makes for a readable and thought-provoking poem. Once again, the use of the internet’s limitless access to text is reflected back and we see the gaping abyss from a different angle.

So cool.

Oh Alanis. What is going on? What’s next, Ani Difranco writes for Cosmo?

Full disclosure: I love Alanis Morissette. We went though an angry, proto-feminist stage together, then tried the spiritual hippie thing, then pulled it together, cut our hair and had a really great relationship. I was really proud of us. And now I refuse to see Ryan Reynolds movies, because seriously, who leaves Alanis Morissette for a cheesecake Hollywood actress?

Alanis in 2007, looking perfectly healthy

However our imaginary friendship hit a rough patch when I saw this headline in OK! magazine: “OK! Exclusive: Alanis Morissette’s Slim-Down Secrets!” Slim-Down secrets? SLIM-DOWN SECRETS?!

<leaves to take a brisk walk around the block>

Ok, I’m back. The things is, Alanis was one of few female public figures who not only called herself a feminist but walked the talk. She supports reproductive rights, she’s involved in several over-seas charities that help third-world women, and she’s really really smart. And the worst part of this whole thing is that she’s been upfront about  having an eating disorder at a young age. She admitted that the media made her feel that to be successful she would have to be thin. Now she’s a role model and feeding that same hysteria to the same media that hurt her so much as a young woman. What gives? This is weird and irresponsible.  If she wanted to loose weight, fine. Whatever, I don’t care. But talking about how being skinny made you feel like a teenager again and feeling guilty for putting salt on rice in a widely-read publication? Not fine.

I think she may need to give “That I Would be Good” or “Mary Jane” another listen.