> and the last poetry I'd ever want to read is the dozey-headed, naively
stupid kind
> championed by David.
Sorry, Candice, but when did I do that? I was talking about certain
qualities in relation to the +pursuit of writing poetry+, the folly, the
stupidity of a love for it, but I wasn't making an aesthetic out of it. I'd
return to the Eliotic reference, the need for poets to be both extremely
sophisticated and extremely primitive, I translate this as clever and dumb
simultaneously. I can't see how pursuing an art like poetry can be anything
but stupid in the eyes of many, after all, it don't pay (for most). But also
I think that a stupidity is required in the sense of being resistant to the
smooth glib surfaces of easy intellection, its persuasive small talk of
knowing superiority. Too, one must consider the trance like matter inherent
in its creation, the dissolution of the boundaries of self and ego it
invokes.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
www.paintstuff.20m.com/index.htm
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Candice Ward" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 1:31 PM
Subject: Re: Back on Planet Earth
> I totally agree (except with the possibility of _your_ "being
> stupid"--perish the thought!). I don't know why anyone would "have to be
> stupid," apart from those who are (tho' probably not by choice), and the
> last poetry I'd ever want to read is the dozey-headed, naively stupid kind
> championed by David. Where does this romantic notion of stupidity, which
> emerges from time to time, come from anyway?
>
> But who knows what Muller meant, absent original context and language.
> (Alison, can you fill those in?)
>
> Candice
>
>
> > I'm afraid I can't think of any sense of the word 'stupid' which would
> > be a necessary quality of a poet. I think Muller's statement is stupid.
> >
> > Or perhaps I'm being stupid.
> >
> > Regards,
> > --
> > Peter
> >
> > http://www.hphoward.demon.co.uk/poetry/
>
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