David, m'sieu'
"Re Walcott: I think we should be careful to distinguish between the fact
> that (a) his critical reputation derives from the fact that he is easily
> consumable in Brit terms as with Heaney and (b)the fact that some of his
> earlier work is certainly worth a look"
I couldn't agree more with that - Walcott's earlier poems, very 'literary',
very 'colonial' in their acquired language, are delicate and sensitive
tendrils to their world. Then he slowly petrifies and becomes 'public'
stone. And statues are, Lenin sometime said, what pigeons ....
Blurbs give me skin-rash, irritations of insect-bites.
Who's this Bircumshaw guy? Always reminds me of a sadistic Maths teacher at
grammar school, who had particularly evil way of lingering over a
surname......
david b
----- Original Message -----
From: David Kennedy <[log in to unmask]>
To: brit poets <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2000 11:52 PM
Subject: If Bircumshaw is Heidegger then who is Celan? [Was Re: a question]
>
> "I like this too - the back of the Bloodaxe 'Repair' of C.K.Williams
> represents him as intellectually the most 'challenging American poet' of
his
> time. Now Williams C.K.'s ok sort of but if he's a difficult poet I'm
> friggin' Martin Heidegger in Chinese translation."
>
>
> Presumably the 'intellectual challenge' needs to be understood in the
> context of (a) other recent Bloodaxe publications and (b) what they know
> about American poetry which from memory of their last catalogue is a
curious
> mixture of Fred Voss, Denise Levertov, James Wright and a lot of low
> temperature stuff by, for example, Dave Smith, Stephen Berg and Steven
> Dobyns.
>
> Re Walcott: I think we should be careful to distinguish between the fact
> that (a) his critical reputation derives from the fact that he is easily
> consumable in Brit terms as with Heaney and (b)the fact that some of his
> earlier work is certainly worth a look. As to whether one wants to
continue
> looking after that is, of course, a personal matter.
>
> And, yes, good to see Brathwaite getting some attention here. Let's hope
> someone reprints the trilogy together in one book - I seem to remember
> X-Self being out from OUP years ago - or did I hallucinate that last bit?
>
> cheers
> David
>
>
>
>
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