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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