Beyond AWP

Now that I've had a couple days and some distance, I feel like I can say this with a degree of clearheadedness: the AWP rocked. Not enough, of course, and not consistently, but let's break it down to its major positive points:

1. all the great books
2. all the interesting panels
3. all the writers

I guess that's about it. Then there are the negative points:

1. all the boring books
2. all the uninteresting panels
3. all the writers

There were other negative points specific to Atlanta, most having to do with the basic fact of being in Atlanta. Being stuck in the Atlanta Hilton for four days is different from being stuck in the Vancouver or Austin Hilton for four days. But there were enough stimulating things (seeing so many old and new friends, the insane elation of travel in any form [not everyone shares this], Alice Notley's heartbreaking reading, Joshua Clover telling everyone at the Poetry & Politics panel not to vote, Heriberto Yepez at the same panel telling everyone not to think good thoughts, Jed Rasula at the panel I was on talking about Blanchot and the Disaster, etc.) to make me want more, and more of the time.

Which brings me to the wish I heard repeated many times by different people over the course of the conference: that there were a smaller annual writing conference, minus all the content oriented around professionalization. The closest thing I can think of in existence right now is the every-four-years National Poetry Foundation conference in Orono (which by the way should be coming up again next year, right?), which is wonderful, but more specifically academic and historical in its focus. It would be great if we could have a yearly event of the following sort:

1. SMALL IN SIZE, IN A SMALL TOWN--no more than a few hundred attendees tops, so you don't have the inevitable splintering-off into multiple evening events across a city, but rather one central lecture/reading/whatever to cap off the day, and then some concentrated revelry in one location (again, Orono is a good model for this, as the town of Orono is remote, tiny, and totally dead after about 6:30 pm, leaving nothing for conference-goers to do at night but party in the dorms where they are housed)
2. WRITING-CENTERED RATHER THAN CAREER-CENTERED--all panels on some aspect of writing per se, including topics like individual writers, aesthetics, movements, history, procedure & craft, cultural contexts, community, DIY publishing, etc. (and no panels on selecting a literary agent, how to enter and win contests, or choosing a creative writing chair, etc.)
3. INDIE/SMALL PRESS-CENTERED--more emphasis on scene- and community-based activity, and less on big trade publishers and academic writing programs (naturally there is a lot of slippage between these categories, but that's okay--the main point again is that it should not be a big recruiting or promotional fair for corporations and institutions, but rather an occasion for writers to meet and share work and discuss ideas on writing, distribution, social contexts, and so on)

Like I said, I've heard a lot of people express interest in this, so it will be exciting if something actually materializes. I've talked a little with my colleague Craig Wright (a fiction writer) about trying to make something similar to this happen in Ashland. Maybe we need a web forum for sharing ideas and plans?