Mark -
many thanks for this. I should have said before that I'm also looking at
the poetry of Ian MacMillan and Geoff Hattersley, I just haven't got around
to dealing with them in any depth yet. I agree with what you say here and
find the Deleuze/Guattari reference of interest: where does it come from?
Perhaps David Kennedy might like to comment on how poetry from the
'Huddersfield' nexus was affected by a) being identified with one place, b)
identifying itself somehow with New York School ideas among others, and c)
the workshop atmosphere which I understand to have helped foster the
distinctive Huddersfield tone which gets into MacMillan, Hattersley, Peter
Sansom and also early work by Simon Armitage (before he drifted off-course
into gloomy personal lyrics) The willingness of MacMillan and Sansom to
take their work into schools, as well as other environments less likely to
welcome poetry (like Barnsley football club!) certainly demonstrates a
commitment to poetry as a common resource in a way different but definitely
related to the one I was thinking of.
The Huddersfield example is also interesting in relation to Ric's idea
about place as resistance, in the context of 'province' versus capital as
well as 'mining community' versus the Thatcherite shadow cast over Northern
England.
Best,
Malcolm Phillips
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