Geraldine
I was quite first thing in the morning when I wrote my last (how's that for
the boigraphical?) so as well as seeing white rabbits come out of jackets
not hats, an event I assure you that emerged from no other substance or
intake other than the given, material, that being the world that is the
case, I feel I left my last sentence, statement, pronouncement,
blither-blathering, uninterrogative question, somewhat in the air, or more
incomplete than usual.
I prefer to say:
The 'personal' is an instable construct, too variable a support - hell, at
any given moment I can probably recall less than a mite of a percent of my
own existence, let alone anyone else's. If there is any place of meeting, of
recognition of self and others, then I suspect it lies in language, and in
language that projects away from the self. Albeit maybe as in a
NiemandsRose.
It's not that I deny the relationship between the personal and its
innumerable filaments and the talking poetic head above the crowds and
washaway stream, but I think it is too delicate, too twined in the
irrecoverable, for biography to be of much use. I don't disavow performance,
either, but it's of the moment, as anything of the senses inevitably is.
Recordings being ghosts.
I have some use for autobiography. As fiction.
cheers
david
----- Original Message -----
From: Geraldine Monk <[log in to unmask]>
To: david.bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>; brit poets
<[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2000 9:15 PM
Subject: Re: Bludaxe
> David,
> I think some rather interesting things have arisen out
> of the Black Velvet Jacket thread and a more careful
> reading would have had you defending not BVJ but
> dear old Peter Riley as it was really he who was taking
> the 'flak' But of course Peter is quite capable enough
> of taking care of himself - at least I hope so - you O.K.
> Peter?
> So why the accusations of 'extreme pettiness, little spites
> and backstabs'? To question or challenge is none of these
> things. The fact that the questions and challenges are not
> always wrapped up in pretty little word packaging or aca-lingo
> doesn't make them spiteful or petty. It's called plain speaking
> where I come from.
> N'ough said. But to continue thread at you wrath I was going
> to bring up in relation to the question the reading/performance
> of poetry.
> This is a situation where the personal cannot be bypassed.
> To read the poem on the page is a very different experience to
> hearing the poet's recorded voice or seeing the poet read. To trot
> out one of the most dynamic changes that can happen it to suddenly
> discover that a poem one has always read as a fairly serious affair
> is actually much lighter or amusing or whatever in the 'flesh' all
> because of the vocal nuances and physical gestures of the reader.
> Readings by the nature are personal.
> I was wondering how people like yourself and Alison approach
> the 'live' event where the personal is inescapable? Or do you
> simply not go to or give readings?
> Anyway oft tut pub. I shall try and resist a late night drunky reply,
> Best
> G.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: david.bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
> To: brit poets <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Friday, November 17, 2000 02:51
> Subject: Re: Bludaxe
>
>
> >This Full Velvet Jacket gig really is wearing out the strings.
> >
> >A friend of mine observed that given Prynne has only to date published
with
> >small presses, quite a good record for 30 years, surely ... and as if
poets
> >decide how a publisher is going to present them ... and who cares? Lots
> >easier than talking about whether it's possible to make a moral
> >language.....
> >
> >I agree with said friend. I find it sourly ironic that a debate that is
> >verging enticingly on questions of personal identity and authorship, and
> the
> >relationship between the contingent, extremely temporary critters, that
are
> >horrified by the bills in the morning post, who like the speaker of
'Borges
> >and I' are 'doomed - utterly and inevitably - to oblivion', and those
> >trans-personal entities that inhabit the poems, that one encounters
during,
> >in Henry's phrase, 'complete absorption in an imaginary world', is
instead
> >being constantly dragged back from escape velocity by the tug of what
seems
> >an extreme pettiness, into what sometimes looks like the little spites
and
> >backstabs of that ghastly notion 'the literary world'.
> >
> >I prefer Russian icons to Raphael, mediaeval lyrics to Hollywood retails
of
> >Auden, Delta Blues to Presley or the Stones.
> >
> >As for cults, well, we lost our authentic shrines over here under the
> >boy-prig king, Edward, did we not?
> >
> >db
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|