I justed pulled this off the ABC website...
A group calling itself "Young People Against Poetry" is
targeting the Brisbane Writers Festival, calling it elitist and
unrepresentitive of youth culture.
The five-day festival was launched last night and today the
group organised an aerial protest banner saying "Poetry
wrecks lives" to be flown over Brisbane.
Protest spokesman Mark Fallu believes traditonal poetry
forms are the frivolous product of a by-gone age.
"Young people engaged in poetic activities today are doing
hip-hop, they are doing hypertext writing they are doing a
whole range of activities that don't really fall under the
ruberic of poetry, as the Brisbane Writers Festival would see
it," Mr Fallu said.
"And because of that they are excluded from the festival and
because their artforms are marginalised all sorts of
problems can emerge."
Well, it doesn't seem that worrying to me. These kids have got more against the institution of the Brisbane Writers
than against poetry per se.
There does seem to be a certain amount of vague sloganeering going on, though.
they say: "poetry wrecks lives"
they mean: one perspective of poetry wrecks our chances of getting involved in a festival organised by people we hate.
and, confusingly, the headline of the piece is "Protesters call Writers Festival racist" - no evidence of that
in the article itself...unless you think hip-hop and hypertexts are racially discrimatory forms.
Hopefully they're all just budding young poets who choose forms other than lyric poetry...they seem to be assuming
an awful lot about what the modern sense of being a poet is...and surely that's just personal (mis)interpretation?
i mean, i'm a young un, and i dislike the notion of fuddy-duddy stuffy old poetry hacks running the world from within
their cigar-smoke filled gentlemen's clubs. but does it really happen, or does poetry happen in the real world?
i know my answer.
my tuppence worth (and a rambling one @ that)
bob johnson
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