Geraldine: You've just very eloquently defined one of the fracture lines in
contemporary poetry--I happen to be on the same side of the fracture. But
I'm not sure that this is a white middle class luxury--I think to do
otherwise is a luxury, and a Third World poet need not have a different
agenda. My faith is that in focusing on the moment of the poem we express
all of our concerns--the world as we can know it--the stories that really
need to be told get told, but from the inside out, under pressure of
present necessity.
>Having said all that, I would like to add that there are many poetries
>available to us as readers, offering a range of experiences and it's
>probably unfair to compare work coming out of vastly different historical
>conditions, but, at the risk of being controversial, might it not be true
>that poetry which simply conveys a prior experience, however moving that
>experience might be, is not really adding much to poetry? It may well
>contribute to our knowledge of the world, I'd be the first to argue there
>are many stories still to be told, and even stories which have been told but
>need to be re-told, but I don't see poetry's first role as telling stories
>or expressing emotion. And now I'm speaking as what I am. White middle
>class. No point in apologising for that. I have a different agenda to that
>of a Third World citizen (male or female) and vice versa.
>
>Geraldine
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