Flabber me gast at this.
>It's the sort of review which in 'spoken word' circles
> is likely to be seen as an attack on a 'youth art form'
> by conservative and reactionary literary traditionalists
Apart from howling with laughter at Ms Croggon's new-found status as a
conservative and reactionary I simply cannot accept the implied antitheses
lurking like subterfuginous slogans here. Successful literary poetry draws
on the spoken word, it animates the dead language of inertia, but extends
speech, beyond its own resources. One has to ask why, if the poets concerned
are so pure in the cause of the spoken word alone, they willingly publish
that work in print? Is it not justifiable, if work is presented as literary
art, that it be judged as such? Or are the franchise-holders of a 'youth
art form' to be granted the dispensation of a double standard?
'Youth art forms' are a marketing ploy, as capitalistic as soaps.
Esentially, they reduce art to entertainment, which is precisely the status
the managers of our culture would have it sink to.
It seems of interest too that Hugh Tolhurst seems to imply, approvingly,
that the radio debate is already a rigged jury, given the apparent
identification of the station with the work exemplified.
I am fascinated that copyright restricts Mr Tolhurst's quotations - surely,
if these radical artistes are so commited to aural culture they would have
no truck with such bourgeois approprations, who ever heard of a joke bearing
a copyright. True oral/aural culture is almost always anonymous.
I am fascinated too, at the post's end, by the guest appearance of Philip
Larkin. Fascinated both by his sudden proximity to 'thought', a context in
which I have not previously encountered that writer, and by the end-tagging
of the name of one of the most truly conservative and reactionary poets of
this century, in art as well as politics, at the end of the message.
david bircumshaw
----- Original Message -----
From: Hugh Tolhurst <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2000 3:20 AM
Subject: 3RRR has an educational license
> Coral Hull wrote:-
>
> 'I would listen in to 3RRR, but I have a life.'
>
> And 3RRR does have an educational license for
> broadcasting, which is one reason why they might
> defend a poet who was poet-in-residence on the ABC's
> Arts Today programme in 1999. Especially where
> they think the idea of an aural poetry is being attacked
> along with the poet in question. I've got an OK life and I'm
> a 3RRR subscriber. Aural Text is often entertaining,
> varied and educational - broadcasts of speeches by
> Martin Luther King were a feature in September, I'm
> happy to endorse listening to Alicia Sometimes and
> Steve Grimwade on Wednesdays from Noon to 1pm
> (though I don't manage it all the time myself).
>
> Thanks to Alison for posting her review in full. It
> should be noted that my objections to the ABR review
> relate particularly to that section of the piece dealing
> with Lauren Williams:-
>
> 'These two very different collections from Five Islands Press
> are marred by their allegiance to this ³free² verse. A central
> problem for both is their lack of prosodical intelligence. While
> they pay obesiance to conventional ideas of lyric poetry, they
> are full of poems which grate the ear: ponderous rhythms, clumsy
> alliterations, lines as tired as old elastic. Often they depend on
> their subject matter to carry the poemıs energy, displaying a
> limited consciousness of the many ways in which language can
> be pricked into life. Language so unaware of itself cannot avoid
> complacency.
>
>
> Lauren Williamsı collection, Invisible Tattoos, recalls a lesser Jo
> Shapcott.
> The poems have a lightness of touch which, intelligently honed, could make
> perfectly unexceptionable, inoffensive poetry: a poetry paying attention
in
> plain language to ordinary moments, which seeks the public rather than the
> inner ear.
>
>
> Is that enough? If her tools were sharper, it might be; but on the whole
her
> poems tend to plump for a soft massage, iterating the obvious. Every now
> and then Williams ventures a spare ironic honesty, which I like rather
> better
> than her awkward sashays into lush lyricism. In ³Shallow² it almost comes
> off: ³I just lie here evaporating / . . . Thereıs no more to me than this
/
> Once
> in a while / I get to reflect the sky².
>
>
> There are a number of poems about poetry. They assume that poetry is its
> own justification, a redemption of human ordinariness - ³Poems are the
lines
> we throw / the nets we make / to catch poetry² (The Good Fish). Williams
> aligns this idea of poetry with the ³truth² which exists inside the self,
a
> perfectly
> worthy sentiment; and yet the bland assurances of this poem sit uneasily
> next
> to its epigraph from Nietzsche, and are too easily answered by his rebuke
> that the poets ³have not thought deeply enough: therefore their feeling
has
> not - plumbed the depths².
>
>
> ³The poets are singing about the moon again², says Williams in another
poem,
> ³
> . . . like users talking about old highs / . . . They go on and on these
> poets / hauling
> up psychadelic cordial / from some bottomless well of inspiration /
singing
> at their
> work / Drink, they say / and jig and reel on their way.² (Two Months
Without
> a Poem, I Go To a Reading).
>
>
> How far this is from Baudelaireıs delirious importuning: ³Always be
drunk!²
> I
> wondered uneasily if this particular poem might be a comment on
Baudelaire:
> if it is (it does not present itself as ironic), it by no means answers
the
> earlier
> poemıs anarchic delight, its irresponsible impulse towards life. This is
an
> intoxication which opens no doors of perception; it offers instead the
> bleared
> face of the drunk, sodden with nostalgia.'
>
> -----------------------------------------------------
>
> If I were the copyright holder, I'd be tempted to defend
> the work Invisible Tatoos largely by quoting. For that
> reason, maybe the 3RRR discussion of the review may
> work well. It's the sort of review which in 'spoken word'
> circles is likely to be seen as an attack on a 'youth art form'
> by conservative and reactionary literary traditionalists.
> Lauren Williams I believe sometimes plays a teaching role
> in the seminars for the Five Islands Press New Poets Program.
>
> Viewed through the history of developments in prosody
> (kind of the reviewer to insist on such high standards) or
> in comparison with Baudelaire (not a comparison many poets
> stand up to), LWs work can be marked down, but this goes
> for pretty well any poetry being written today. I think
> there is complacency in a reviewer who can't see that these
> poems which are located firmly in an aural poetry tradition
> (not just Australian - Mal Morgan etc - but also Columbian -
> see the poems on learning Spanish and attending Medellin's
> poetry festival) are themselves often lively, sharp,
> witty, effective -
>
> 'It's Elle Macpherson
> smiling from the chariot of her perfection
> She draws nigh somewhere
> between too fast and too slow
> between forced and natural radiance
> between modesty and false modesty
> between cool and chill
>
> She gets away with it
> Luck is being born with the means of production
> Capitalism is making it earn -
> hair like one glossy animal
> the honeyed skin of her face
>
> matching the honeyed skin of her neck
> matching the honeyed skin of her hands
> matching the honeyed skin of her ankles
> the cut of the cream jacket and matching
> mid-calf pants hugging her
> like beautiful insurance
> _Elle! Elle!_ I almost call
> _I'm Australian too!_'
>
>
> - from "Seeeing Elle Macpherson"
> by Lauren Williams (Invisible Tattos pp 40-41)
> [hope I indicated the italics correctly]
>
>
> Viva la Spoken Word!
>
> Hugh Tolhurst
>
>
> PS Where the reviewer wrote:- 'Often they depend on
> their subject matter to carry the poemıs energy' - one is
> mindful that even Philip Larkin thought subject matter
> more important than technique.
>
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