Hi Wystan

I'm pondering these and will get back to you after some sleep and floating
of ideas. What I'm asking myself is whether my expectations of poetry are
'unrealistic', is that I'm a covert Romantic who doesn't recognise the
reality of things even if they are shoved under my nose? Or am I right, and
is the virtue of poetry a something that transcends the fast buck, the
mundane routines, the whispers behind the back? I dunno, I have to
deliberate on these matters.

Thanks

and

All the Best

Dave


David Bircumshaw

Leicester, England

Home Page

A Chide's Alphabet

Painting Without Numbers

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wystan Curnow (FOA ENG)" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 10:41 PM
Subject: Re: Numbers


Dave,
    and the poem continues:

        I had decided to go back
        to school after fifteen years in
        community poetry because I felt
        I did not know enough to navigate
        through the rocky waters that
        lie ahead for all of us in this field.
        How had Homer done it, what might Milton
        teach? Business training turned
        out to be just what I most needed.
        Most importantly, I learned that
        for a business to be successful, it
        needs to be different, to stand out
        from the competition. I poetry,
        this differentiation is best
        achieved through the kind of form
        we present.
         ....

-----Original Message-----
From: david.bircumshaw [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, 27 November 2002 4:37 a.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Numbers


>Well, an encounter like that David would be enough to embiutter the best of
us. But we should know by now, all is commodity.

Doug<

What's worse, Doug, is that the person concerned is someone I regard as a
friend. I dunno, what I find is that 'business speak' is invading the arts
on a scale beyond hithertofore. What took me aback too was her knowledge of
the grants that were available, if you knew the right people, as they say.

An ironic footnote - to be helpful to this poor poet she did give me a
number for a temporary job, well paid too, 10 pounds an hour.

It was to be a Santa Claus in a shopping mall!


Best

Dave



David Bircumshaw

Leicester, England

Home Page

A Chide's Alphabet

Painting Without Numbers

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 3:15 PM
Subject: Re: Numbers


>
>Actualmente, Doug, I have a lot of sympathy for the 'other Doug' on this.
>I've noticed an alarming decline in the quality of my own writing in recent
>months, the roots of this are tangled, all sorts of personal stuff seems
>involved, as well as a sense of depression about the current cultural
>situation, something which manifests itself to me in very direct ways, it's
>not an abstract concern. It's as if I've had the stuffing knocked out of
me,
>it seems as if the antithesis of the creative has won the day. Last night
>someone who has just moved into Arts Admin (at the age of 22) was lecturing
>me about my lack of marketing nous, poetry is 'a product' she told me and
if
>I only contacted this number I would be given sound business advice on
>furthering my work. I used to hold to the illusion that poetry was a
>'protected space' free of the deadly forces of greed and money but now I
>feel that it is becoming just another part of the 'system'.

Well, an encounter like that David would be enough to embiutter the best of

us. But we should know by now, all is commodity.

Doug

Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm

        Is that the flesh made word
        or is that the flesh-made word?

                        Fred Wah