In reply to my second question about what he meant by 'overly clever -
Peter:
>"2. Overly clever... Hmmm... I could describe this in two ways. Firstly the
colloquial: poetry that's up its own arse, or more gently: poetry that
requires a lot of prior specialist knowledge for one to understand, be that
of a particular subject or of poetry in general. Maybe that's just the
difference between good & bad poetry...(?)"<
I suppose what you are saying Peter (I know its been said many times before
by all manner of philistines who for whatever reason don't wish to engage
with something but still see fit to put that something down) is that poetry
which is a closed loop of designated writer-reader-writer is exclusive within
that loop and therefore elitist etc while a poetry which is not up its own
arse would then be a poetry communicated openly by the mouth to a good clean
pair of ears etc. So the metaphoric values conferred on these processes are
established - cliched illusions that get repeated time and time again by
people who are too lazy to think any deeper about things. It is true that
some poetry 'requires a lot of prior specialist knowledge' but such knowledge
can be any manner of things (not just erudition, which is what you seem to be
referring to) and such a background neither makes the poem good or bad any
more than a straightforward poem is made good or bad by its apparent
simplicity.
Sometimes I like 'clever' and sometimes I do not - 'clever', in other words,
is not the issue.
Do you feel proud at sharing one of the most consistent and deeply ingrained
prejudices of your country? The anti intellectualism of the English
undoubtedly has its good points but it has many more bad points and in poetry
that attitude has been catastrophic. Inferiority complexes/fears of all kinds
(some connected to class) abound.
All the best
Ordinary Tim Allen
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