I said:
"my point is that every time we talk about binaries, schisms in contemporary
poetry we are in effect privileging them."
Tim replied:
"Absurd? Impossible? Help me somebody, please! How can we discuss anything
if we don't discuss it. I have entered a strange illogical world and
everyone is smiling. I am scared."
OK point taken. What I was trying to say is that we need to be AWARE that
every time we talk about binaries, schisms in contemporary poetry we are in
effect privileging them. This ought hopefully to encourage us to try and
find other ways of talking about poetry that does not just continually
reproduce what Tim rightly calls 'the strange binary history of modern
British poetry'. The recent 'History Question' thread here [don't know if
Tim was here then] threw up loads of names I'd never even heard of before,
never seen books by. One of the things about history - even a strange binary
one - is that it is susceptible to revision. For example, it might seem that
the Fifties was just the Movement but there were other, still recoverable,
activities going on. Anyway, that's what I've learned recently. So perhaps
it's Mission Impossible then: to read as widely as possible while at the
same time always being aware that such reading is still likely to be narrow,
influenced by dominant histories.
Hope that makes better sense and is less 'innocent'. [Actually, it's quite
nice to find out I can still be innocent about something at 41!]
cheers
David
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