K: That last note was as general as it seemed to be and honestly not
directed at any "Cambridge:" position -- don't start getting paranoid!
Don't read particular accusations into broad common-sense. What I said
about attacking ancestral language could apply to a mass of practices in
many languages or media all over the world, such as some Dada, L-a-n-g-u...
all kinds of experimentalist things, anti-art, god knows what, if the hat
fits.. And -some- so-called Cambridge poetry. CamPo circa 1970 was, in my
lights, and others', dedicated to conserving and re-enriching ancestral
language after a period of impoverishment, and in some quarters clearly
still is. Such things as Henrian and early/mid-17th Century poetical
language were very much at the back of the mind. (Why has nobody mentioned
Traherne, who stands at the very gates of modern poetry?) Some
practitioners of poetry and other things (not including the authors you
mention) really are interested in wrecking the language and some would
proudly acknowledge so, and for political reasons--- not only by
fragmenting and distorting it but also by reducing it to faintly amusing
easy chat.
As a general principle, don't you think the onus is on the advocates of
"impossible poetry" to show that it is readable, rather than on the baffled
to show that it is not readable? Isn't that how education normally works?
I might deny that all of the titles you mention are in fact "readable" or
indeed meant to be. But that's another question and there are already too
many distractions.
I don't know what you mean about practical activities. I'm saying this has
always been a great country for leaning on the gate moaning about the state
of things and then trudging home through the cow-shit to fall asleep as
quickly as possible. Plus ça devient Marxiste plus c'est la même chose,
n'est-ce pas.
On the other hand there is clearly a sense in which "A Salvo for Africa"
can claim to -be- practical activity. I'm sure you'd agree.
/P
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