Thanks Christopher for your most interesting reply.
At 11:13 AM +0000 4/12/2001, Christopher Walker wrote:
>*Equality*, though, I distrust: an apple is not _the equal_ of a pear. I
>know, of course, what you mean: an absence of oppression. But *equality*
>also implies a false sense of substitution, interchangeability, a conceptual
>by-product of mechanical reproduction, along with deskilling in the
>workplace and an impoverishment and/or diminishment of various social ties.
>We need to get quite away from that sort of thing. (Ulrich Beck says
>something similar, I believe.)
Equality does not mean "the same" - the fact is, I can't think of a
better word, especially this early in the morning, for what I mean.
(And it does recall "all animals are equal, but some are more equal
than others" and that scene in The Life of Brian where Reg is
demanding the _right_ to have a baby). What is a better word for a
sense of mutual respect and mutual responsibility, which also implies
difference? For something which means the enrichment of social
relationships, in its focussing on individual validities? I do mean
something quite specific and real, which I know is possible from my
own personal relationships, but I don't quite know how to describe it.
Its lack is evident everywhere, though.
>
>Andrew Motion's WTC poem, recently aired on this list, blends Holt Marvell's
>*These Foolish Things* ('A telephone that rings but who's to answer, / Oh,
>how the ghost of you clings'; the calls' direction is reversed) with
>revenge-seeking ghosts (eg: *Hamlet*):
>
> 'The voices live which are the voices lost:
> we hear them and we answer, or we try
> [...]
>
> ... we find a way to keep
> the dead beside us as our time goes on'
>
>In interview, Motion has described being asked to incorporate references to
>the telephone messages recorded by the victims and to the building itself:
>'the deep / foundation of ourselves, our cornerstone' is how the poem ends.
>What he has done, however, is to versify, to render falsely pastel ('An
>airline ticket to romantic places'), and thus to make covert, Blair's
>bellicose exhortation (I paraphrase only a little) to 'keep those telephone
>calls in your minds, and keep on supporting the bombing'.
Ah, _that's_ what made me feel uncomfortable about that poem - I
confess I never spend much time with Andrew Motion. "Falsely pastel"
is it.
>
>So what should poets do? What _can_ they do? The questions you began with. I
>too don't believe that poetry can (or should) be justified by its
>_usefulness_. It's certainly not very 'useful' in any direct or obvious way.
>But as writers and as readers we _can_ 'work and eat at the same table', as
>Prynne puts it. We can remain alive to the consequences of what is on that
>table. We can 'look to [our] limits and employ them' (also Prynne).
Yes. Whenever thinking about the use of poetry, I'm inclined to
reach for Rukeyser. The problem really is, for anyone troubled by
how the world is, how to face poetry's uselessness squarely and
honestly (that's what I liked about Keston Sutherland's article in a
recent Jacket). It's a fine line between understanding its necessity
- which I believe - and kidding ourselves...
Best
Alison
--
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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