Dear Nate,
Thanks for your considered response. I wish Armitage/Crawford also
participated in this list, so that they could enjoy their...share... of this
discussion.
I don't think the comparison with making an anthology of Renaissance poetry
is apt. What might turn out to be the canon (loaded term) of the recent and
contemporary is still being chewed over.
The anger expressed by some respondents about what they see as the neglect
of what Tim Allen has referred to as 'the modernist and innovative
tradition' will come as a surprise to some other readers, who have gained
the very strong impression that writers and critics associated with that
tradition prefer - at times insist on - an apparent separation of realms.
To put it very crudely (and, for the sake of brevity, let's not argue the
toss over this) there seems to be on one hand the mainstream (another
loaded term) and on the other 'the modernist and innovative tradition', with
its own book and journal publishing, conferences, readings and so on,
enjoying the specialized advantages of an elite of internal emigres and only
referring to matters beyond its preoccupations in order to deliver the
occasional raised eyebrow or aristocratic chortle. (Of course, this is a
travesty - much as the reversed view of the mainstream as a middlebrow gravy
train seems to be - try that one on W.N. Herbert. Michael Donaghy or Don
Paterson, for exmaple. And there are points of
contact. Roy Fisher would be one, W.S. Graham another, and their inclusion
in The Firebox is not patronizing, as David Bircumshaw seems to suggest.
third might be - I hope - a mutual sense of the crushing boredom produced by
dire Performance Poets.)
But it does seem strange that seeming adherents of 'the modernist and
innovative tradition' should complain about lack of representation when
previously it does not seem to have been sought (but it should not be
assumed that the work went unconsidered).And If the situation were
reversed, it is unlikely that a 'modernist and innovative' editor would
wring his/her hands for very long over the claims of the neglected
mainstream, isn't it? The comparison is of, of course, inexact, but POEMS
FOR THE MILLENNIUM, for example, is hardly very exercised on this theme.
I realize that this hardly begins to deal with the questions arising from
the subject,
but for the moment this is all I can say - because I have to get on with
other work. As to the suggestion that David Bircumshaw should edit his own
anthology, I hear what Nate says about the economics, of course, but still
think it would be interesting for David (and, for example, for me) if he set
about walking the walk as well as talking the talk.
Nate, I don't recognize your description of me as a member of the literary
establishment. The literary establishment is always somewhere else. I
understand that members have webbed toes and a secret handshake.
I'm glad the conspicuous malice seems to have gone out of these exchanges. I
think Elizabeth James (herself a poet who has moved between the alleged
realms) is right to suggest that we might have reached a stopping-point for
the time being. Hollow laughter.
Best wishes
Sean O'Brien
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