My main objection to those that still profess even now to some 'difference' or radical agenda is that they deliberately set out to be odd and then express grievances against some perceived 'mainstream' that they are treated as outsiders. Well, there is no point locking yourself out if you want to come in. Plus, of course, all the other reasons explained so cogently by Don Paterson in his essay on Michael Donaghy's poem, Hazards, in his book on the subject (somewhere below on here).
In that essay, we are told of a method in which the avant garde obfuscate for obfuscation's sake,
you take a poem, or write a poem, and then you substitute every content word for the next one in the OED.
I don't actually have the OED immediately to hand but I have a dictionary that will serve the purpose. And I have a poem, that old standard The Cathedrals of Liverpool. So, what happens.
I can see it being a parlour game. I can see it causing some amusement for a while. But I can also see it becoming a bit tiresome sooner rather than later. It is a one-trick sort of act. And that, I suppose, is what the avant garde has been ever since I was fascinated by it as a teenager and whereas it still is, I no longer am.
But I've done the first few lines of The Cathedrals of Liverpool, allowing just the most necessary bits of licence, and while I can see the potential of the project, I will need to have much more time on my hands or be much, much further into the Chateau David to complete the assignment.
The Catheters of Liverwort
That newborn yearn dayak eventuates
the drogue changeling to rainbow and backbencher
and justice in timekeeper we camel across
Scotland Yard, protestation catheter
-a vaunt of airborne that brooks upon
its sing, But, really, with all due respect to Stanley Unwin, what is the point.
