everyone,
i regret deeply my hot-headed behaviour in attacking lawrence and my
scattergun charge against this list (and therefore against you all). i
withdraw all accusations made against lawrence and against the list
generally. i know i can't undo the damage or the offence but at least i
can acknowledge my responsibility and thus set straight the record.
my initial response to lawrence was far too "heavy" and reveals what a
paranoid person i am. my poetryland rant was ridiculously simplistic as
well as being stupidly hostile but it was nevertheless grimly effective.
i am sorry. i'm sorry that anyone should have to read any of this but in
my response to lawrence, below, i try to begin to explain how i came to
act so, should anyone wish to read any further ...
lawrence,
i now feel extremely silly, of course. like many before me i look at my
simplistic challenges and wonder how i could have been so stupid as to
expect to get anything other than anger and rash behaviour as response.
i know these incidents always degenerate rapidly into name-calling and
wild accusations but my frustration enabled me to overlook this fact.
so, (i hear you ask) what is the nature of the frustration which drove
me to attack you and the list so vehemently? insecurity is certainly
part of it. i am fairly isolated socially, awkward in public spaces such
as this, and feel that "difference" is part of the problem.
i'm from a very working class (sunderland) background and the native
tongue was always something which seemed to be regarded by its users as
stigma as much as anything else. but the language of high art and
philosophy etc was the language of the self-serving elite so it was
suspect and in effect inaccessible, or at least unusable around the
house.
the upshot of this kind of experience, for me and for many others, is a
lack of ease. books were my salvation but even now there are lots of
modes of discourse which are somehow always alien to me. areas where i
tend to experience insecurity and express myself with difficulty. i'm
constantly aware of my difficulty with language. my sentences are made
of matchsticks. poetry is to some extent a release from this hell.
so the notion that anyone highly articulate might be working actively to
represent the "low" "amateur" art of the masses as merely "lazy" and a
more "difficult" more "classical" more "professional" style as
meeting more rigourous standards was obviously going to be something i
could take far too personally. i apologise. i also withdraw all
accusations and insinuations. i realize it is impossible to unthrow dirt
and i'm sorry if it transpires that your reputation is in any way
tarnished as a result of my actions.
as for you being "a nasty piece of work" - please note that the term was
not marked as being a quote in my original. i can't help you in terms of
naming others who might have said _as much_. you can probably identify
them from memory better than i. i did not accept at face value any of
the damning statements made about you at the time of the shapcott affair
but your canine capers seemed suddenly to validate those expressions.
once again i apologise.
sincerely,
steve
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