I had encountered Palmer before in a more 'extreme' manifestation. What
really surprised and moved me about the Gulf war poems was the way that they
were accessible yet scrupulously worked through the problematics of
representation, attention and interpretation whereas the Harrison has
absolutely no sense of this. Harrison's stuff just assumes 'here's a photo,
this is its meaning, I can interpret it for you and we can all agree on it'.
Is that a bell I hear tolling wrong wrong wrong?! There was line in the
Palmer - something like 'this hand we never knew was ours' - which seemed to
me to sum up why the Gulf War was such an important event for the West i.e.
suddenly all these secret, 'smart' weapons were revealed that had been made
in 'our' name and we didn't know about them. And yet they were somehow
inextricably a part of our collective identity...
cheers
David
-----Original Message-----
From: Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 02 July 2000 16:44
Subject: Re: Poetry and Poetics into the 21st Century - conference atSalford
Uni
>I'd definitely vote for Michael Palmer as a poet truly worth reading.
>Indeed, great intelligence & a fabulous sense of language & the line. Not
>to mention wit.
>
>Douglas Barbour
>Department of English
>University of Alberta
>Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
>(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
>http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
>
> The abandoned world offers its wild particulars,
> leaves in the air, a single leaf on water.
> ............
> The rain falls like rain.
> David Helwig
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