*

When poets dismiss “surrealism,” they’re not really talking about “Surrealism.”

They are talking about a discomfort with Art.

Other symptoms of this discomfort are saying that something is excessive, privileged, counterfeit, unoriginal, childish or irresponsible.

An anxiety about art that doesn’t “move us forward.”

This is the same anxiety that causes poets to talk about being the true inheritors of a certain “line” of poetry.

It’s the fear of fakers.

Ie artists.

It is fear of outsiders.

Poetry is lost in translation.

The inside is lost in translation.

These authorities of good taste think the true insiders will continue their bloodline.

I think: Art is not passed through lineage, but through influence.

Which comes from the outside.

Which is fake.

Ie one is “under the influence.”

I’m an immigrant and I’m constantly trying to translate.

But I translate things from the outside.

Like clothing.

Like cloning.

Which is to say, I'm neither inside nor outside but here.

Which is to say that there is no outside or inside, just here. An iteration.