On Tue, 13 Jun 2000, Peter Riley wrote:
> Barry MacSweeney made it clear in his poetry that his alcoholism was a
> factor of his rage and disappointment, at immense cultural deprivation,
> from which no poetry could save him. And at the absolute failure of the
> world to deliver the self into its poetical promise. He desperately
> recognised the impotence of what he was doing within an ethos which said it
> should have been immensely important.
Dear Peter,
I may have misunderstood, but:
I am not sure MacSweeney does appear to recognise the impotence of
what he was doing; it seems that the ethos you describe is, and always
was, entirely his own (or at least one he borrowed from Pound). Instead
of this impotence I find a sense of disillusionment and despair, primarily
arising from the "self-appointed guarantors of consonants and vowels", the
"Cambridge Marxist prefects", the people who should have, in his opion,
identified most with his concept of the social function of the poet.
Indeed, are MacSweeney's poems not the products of his most potent
moments, relics from brief spells of clear-headed stock-takings and
bearing checks, "notes for my own illumination"? It is here, in diurnal
existence, he can report back from the split ecstacies you
describe: account for, redress, thank (dedications?), etc.
In short, rather then finding it disempowering, perhaps MacSweeney
found poetry to be the closest thing he had to a saviour.
Am I way of the mark?
Matthew Furse-Roberts.
p.s. on a separate note:
Jack Daniels' "Breaking Free : The FurtherAdventures of
Tintin" is "dedicated to all those fighting against capitalism" - a sweet
thought, but wholly lacking when compared to the afore mentioned
"Tesco" dedication.
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