----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 18 March 2002 21:46
Subject: Re: no subject left! Lefts.
| From: "Lawrence Upton" <[log in to unmask]>
|
| > For interest, Robin, what was I wrong about?
|
| That there was good stuff in it. To be honest, you may be right, but it
was
| so badly edited and presented (to my eyes at least) that digging the
jewels
| from the dung would take too much effort.
|
| Richard and I are probably equally ballistic over _100 Days_, for totally
| opposite reasons.
|
| > I think I summarise myself correctly: that I mistrusted it conceptually,
| but
| > I trust the editor and publishers - I admire them tremendously as poets
|
| See my earlier posts on this -- I +really+ dislike and distrust posture
| politics, and it would have been yesterday's newspaper without 9/11. As
| agitprop, it sucked. And Richard is totally right here, the bloody book
put
| itself forward as agitprop.
|
| > I supported / support the aim, despite my suspicion of agitprop; I
| supported
| > the claim that there is a need to express dissent even if it is
unheard -
| > even if it is condemned by know nothing arrogant air heads as an attempt
| to
| > take over the world
|
| Phoey. If you're going to do agitprop, bloody get it RIGHT. Shelley in
| Mask, Mayakovsky in "Red Passport", Harrison on the Gulf War. NOT some
| incestuous Ivy League/Oxbridge publication that no one will read.
|
| {Oh, lor', I'm losing my temper, amn't I, Lawrence?
|
| But who on this list other than thee and me and Richard have actually read
| it? Fewer than have copies, given the number of list members printed in
| it.}
|
| > I think things moved faster than Andrea expected - and this I didn't say
| > explicitly that Sep 11 changed / diminished the likelihood of pop sales
|
| As you say, "I mistrusted it conceptually".
|
| Conceptually it was flawed. Presentationally it was crap. As any kind of
| intervention in a political debate, it was a joke.
|
| > I think there's some good stuff in it
|
| Maybe. And that's the crunch. I've done my bit -- I (for better or
worse)
| ran a List critique on the Ann Waldman piece in 100D.
|
| I really do think the ball is in your camp now -- pick a piece, a
+specific+
| piece, from 100D and explain why it will Live Forever.
|
| At least both Richard and I have copies.
|
| > And I thought I was right about everything all the time
|
| Don't we all, brudda?
|
| <g>
|
| Robin
|
|