I must thank Tom for this piece on J.H. and the tale of Sparty-Lee.
I'm sure that the combination of Tom telling J.H. that he reads like a
Darlek and the pranging of his car led him on his way to becoming the
"invisible" poet! The more I hear of this guy the more I think that Prynne
is on the priggish side --his Marxist avant-garde credentials are pure
unadulterated bull. But hey he is the avant garde poet laureate -- a
Marxist who doesn't read to people and tells two year olds to fucking shut
up. Nice guy. A poem is a poem. Sure.
on twisting -re John Temple's "twist"
In *Kitchen Poems* (1968) J H Prynne uses the expression
'twist-point', which might serve for 'the eye', in a veryparticular context:
'... the twist-pointis "purchase" - what the mindbites on is yours'
I bring this up (Prynne has an Olson connection and is mentioned
a couple of times in *Maximus*) because of the sense of how
*ownership* works in the above quotation and because Prynne also
suggests a dispersal of the self in the medium of the poem:
'... as if we tie into / so many voices'.
It would be foolish to employ one difficult poet to explicate
another. However, I do think that something of ED's fluidity of
meaning may relate to how the reader approaches the problem of
'purchase' (in both senses). I also strongly suspect that phrases
such as 'should you think it breathed' are not necessarily simply
the neutral use of a clich·or a borrowing. A certain archness
seems to have characterised many of ED's dealings with Higginson
and it may be that 'breathed' was a term she assumed he would
buy. Likewise her use of sources and references in the poetry
need not be neutral or innocent necessarily even where they leave
the interpretation of tone or context up to the reader.
These are somewhat unformed thoughts, I'm afraid. I hope theymake some
sense.
Christopher Walker
Since 1965 a divide has existed between the London.v.Cambridge/Brighton
axis. Sinclair's editing of Griffiths (and a few others) is as far as he
goes in admitting the London scene into the echelons of Cambridge
grammatically challenged writings. Most of the Cambridge school, if they
still write at all, carry the mantle of distaste for public readings
inherited from J.H.Prynne who last read in England in 1968 when Tom Pickard
advised him that he `read like a fucking dalek'. (4) Compared to Griffiths,
they are no sound poets.
He does not profitably court further public `arenas' like Benjamin Zephaniah
or Tom Pickard, two other `working class' poets who've seen the inside of a
cell. Identifiable to a working class/ethnic minority, they choose other
mediums to work in, not least Pickard, initially semi literate, dyslexic, a
tag he worked to throw off; now a film-maker and social historian.
I take newsletters from the Anarchist Black Cross that helps prisoners, and
correspond with a prisoner in Long Latin, but do not (and will not) teach in
the formal prison context. (6)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|