Steve Abbott on New Narrative

New Narrative is language conscious but arises out of specific social and political concerns of specific communities. It may be foregrounded as in the work of Luisah Tiesh, Shirely Garzotto, Robert Gluck, and Judy Grahn or more buried as in recent work by Leslie Scalapino and Aaron Shurin. It stresses the enabling role of content in determining form rather than stressing form as independent or separate from its social origins and goals. Wiring which makes political and emotional (as well as linguistic) connections interests me more than writing which does not.

Steve Abbott, Soup Intro , SOUP 2

New Narrative marks an emotional moving forward. What Grahn and her feminist precursors Pat Parker, Alta and Sharon Isabell do in writing, graffitists do in painting: traditional subject/object boundaries blur. New Narrative shatters linearity , proceed by flashes, enigmas, and yields to a florid crying-out-theme of suffering-horror. Unlike the abject, however, which can't go "out" because it has no real self to go out from, New Narrative bridges out in its suffering-horror feature, to a future. Formalisms implode, stagnate. Where New Narrative parts with the older literature of the abject(Celine, Kafka, etc.) , is in its communal and political grounding.

Steve Abbott, Notes on Boundaries, New Narrative SOUP 4

A Brunch Encounter

Bob (Robert Glück) came by our table at Cafe Flore to congratulate me on Bell Book & Scandal saying many nice and insightful things as he does so well. During our brief (chat our food has just arrived and Bob was on his way out) Bob asked who had put it together. In the course of my answer a series of connective loops emerged.

Chris Komater of course as Bob's once boyfriend. But then Emily Wilson (Chris's friend) whom I had met in Camille Roy's workshop (Camille one of the Bob's son's Reese's mothers) and one of the heirs to Bob's legendary workshop(s). Emily with whom I now participate in Dodie Bellamy's workshop (Dodie being an early heir/part of the original workshop scene at Small Press Distribution when it was a bookstore and mattered in the lit scene in SF. And then of course following David Christensen with whom I shared many of Dodie's workshops and an admiration for the whole original New Narrative crowd including Bob and Kevin Killian all of whom David discovered on his own unlike my drifting in through the SF State MFA program where I first met Bob.

And the connections within this set of people: shared projects, books, exhibitions and all part of the scene that sometimes does not feel as tightly bound as this encounter suddenly made it seem to me.

Bell Book & Scandal

I began by writing plays or I as prefer to call them, performance texts. I had the good fortune to work with directors and actors who understood and supported my work, sparing me the complete loss of control writers often experience with writing for performance (live or recorded). Even better on a few occasions I was able to direct my own work and on the rarest occasions perform the work as well. And still I could not control what the writing became in the performance and had to muster cast and crew and props and sets to bring the work to an audience. And so I stopped writing performance texts and began writing stories. In these stories I try to create something dynamics of performance writing by appealing to a broader array of senses and sensibilities.

Until recently I have used the language of the stories as the sole tool to create this effect. In Bell Book & Scandal now showing at Marjorie Wood Gallery I've added pictures. In this case the language is simpler and the story depends upon the presence of the images for its complexity. Please check it out.