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
>
>
>
>
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