That's OK - as I had mentioned in passing that you had got my name wrong
before, I assumed you must be doing it deliberately. I am not offended when
people reverse my name by mistake, as happens quite often.
To return - cautiously - to our previous discussion, it's clear now that you
were not intending to be taken literally when you said that you hated the
use of 'we' in poems generally. I was not sure whether you were or not. It
seems to me that self-parody is not an inaccurate description of the
hyperbole you used, which you have yourself subsequently described as a
joke. You were parodying or exaggerating a position you actually hold, and
perhaps it was a bit much to expect that others would be able to distinguish
your real position from your joking one on so little evidence. I don't, I'm
afraid, remember your former discussion of the subject.
I was a bit puzzled, too, Candice, when you said we'd been through the
question of pronouns exhaustively before. Are you sure it was on this list?
I do remember a discussion of my own personal bete noire, poems that use
'you' supposedly to tell a real person a lot of things they must already
know - as in _Birthday Letters_. It was a long time ago, and may have been
on britpo, which I belonged to at the time. Somebody came up with one of
Hardy's great poems to *his* dead wife, and effectively silenced me on that
one. I still think that most of the time the effect is unbearably pompous,
and there are a lot of poets who seem to think anything is a poem provided
it's in the present tense and addressed to a lover, or the past and
addressed to a dead relative.
If this is becoming a bore, I had better stop. For me, as I've said, it's
crucial - the question of pronouns, like the question of form, is one that I
have to settle for myself all over again every time I write a poem. And
while I accept that 'we' can also be a symptom of self-importance, I believe
some poets successfully claim the right to speak for others. I could quote
lots of examples, but the one that sticks in my mind is the end of
_Briggflatts_:
Night, float us.
Offshore wind, shout.
Ask the sea
what's lost, what's left,
what horn sunk,
what crown adrift.
Where we are who knows
of kings who sup
while day fails? Who
swinging his axe
to fell kings, guesses
where we go?
Best wishes
Matthew
-----Original Message-----
From: Clitennestra Giordan <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 08 April 2001 17:01
Subject: Re: please expand
>Dear Matthew,
>
>I was not aware that I was using your surname.
>I am sorry if it sounded rude. I was simply confused.
>Have my sincere apologies.
>So, Matthew, please, excuse me again.
>
>
>
>erminia
>
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