I was delighted to read the discussion meself. Just been reading some of
Gore's essays with one being on this question and the serious novel. A
serious novel being one which is taught in the universities and having been
understood by the student the student goes on to teach the serious novel to
more students in universities. But the really interesting thing is Gore don't
stick to one position but can slide all over the place. Gore's essays are
perhaps his way of working things out or thinking aloud in public and always
changing his mind. ((I have to laugh at those confrontational fools I have
met along the way who take some delight in citing his essays as a statement
of (their) position.... and to think one idiot considered himself a literary
critic ..... More like a poetry policeMan telling me what I can read and not
read.))

The one thing that really worries me in this debate is anti-intellectualism as
a position which is opposed to thought. A poet must not think. It is good
enough that he can reproduce the purely formal elements of a poem. (Masculine
pronoun intended. Even women is a Man if she who is he arrogates this
position.) What should happen if poets questioned formal considerations and
the politics of Formalism. It is interesting that critical opposition to gay
and lesbian poetry writing took up form as its battering ram in an attempt to
critically destroy, saying gay and lesbian poetry is not good form. Having
perhaps failed, finding instead Formalism itself under threat of destruction,
the next approach was co-option into a specific type of academic thought
under the banner of Queer Theory (oh, and how nasty is some of this stuff,
nasty, nasty, nasty) and perhaps this leads to a rejection, an angry
rejection perhaps, of academic or university teaching of poetry, queer theory
and any theory. Either being for or against the academic institutions (and
theory and thought) is to be trapped in a little box and starved slowly of
oxygen. Why does this get missed in so many readings of Gore's delightful
essays?

I am doing a research degree in writing. (That is, pure research, no seminars
or other such things.) My thesis is writing a novel. Does this mean my novel
which is my thesis is going to be serious, experimental, academic? Perhaps
there is another possibility and many possibilities, many lines of flight.
Both my research supervisors are very good editors and readers. Since
editors are few (and not very well paid and hence very experienced and not
having the time to work on manuscripts for publication) in the multinational
book publishing industry, perhaps looking elsewhere is a very useful thing to
do. It poses another question. What use can poets and novelist make of
universities? (Gore Vidal knew what to do to make his writing machine work.)

best

Chris Jones

PS.... this don't mean I don't get to do an annual report. I just get poetic
when it comes to research outcomes and things like time lines. A deadline is
just a frame. Why striate it with time lines?


On Fri, 6 Sep 2002 17:20, you wrote:
> the Gabe/Henry exchange is inriguing but I'm wondering if, to those of us
> in such 'marginal' cultures as Australia, NZ, Canada may feel that it has
> an awful lot to do with the fact that they're writing from the USA, with
> it's huge, cultural, demands upon the individual to 'make it big' in
> whatever area, even the 'paltry' one of poetry?
>