Lawrence:
To cut to the bone, I think the idea/concept/word/verbal token of beat/Beat
is both trivial and transparent.
I may have been wrong in picking you up on this, but the street/Street is
another matter -- it's where the flash coves trade bunko with bent rozzers,
and cowboy saviours crucify themselves on the strings of their electric
guitars.
The black economy, the Grey World. It's there, all too there ...
I want to write a poem around this -- are the only poems still worth writing
elegies? -- that would link oh so many people.
Hendrix and James Baxter and Hugh Cornwall (who I *do* realise is still
alive) -- oh so many, Cash the latest -- but how to write a poem that
doesn't just ghost Berryman's elegies?
Isn't, finally, yet *another* elegy for Berryman?
Beats me.
Eccles.
> Robin
>
> I am obviously not expressing myself clearly,
>
> At no time did I mean to imply that I am either kin to Todd or that I find
> _street_ transparent.
>
> I had written to Todd b-c - by mistake. Decided to stick with that, became
> impatient, and wrote another, Todd of course has both and is responding to
> what you haven't seen.
>
> I had said
>
> I live a somewhat sheltered life and have not, to my knowledge, come
across
> the phrase _Beat-to-Street_ before; but my gut feeling, before I've
thought
> about it, is that it sounds like an advertising or PR concoction - _slam
in
> the lamb_ for instance, or (another food one) _packet_to_plate_
>
> >From your description, it seems to do an injustice to or to misconstrue
Beat
> Poetry, if that is the _beat_ it refers to... and I have always doubted
the
> concept of what happens on the street as being somehow more authentic than
> what happens elsewhere. I am willing to be persuaded on either or both._
>
> I had gone for _beat-to-street_, indicating that I knew the meaning of
beat
> and street, only to be offered _beat_ and _street_ but not _beat to
street_
> and it was in that context that I said I was ok with street
>
> Given Todd's apparent objection to explaining his meaning + the, to me,
> astonishing idea that the use of cliches eliminates vagueness + a rather
odd
> take on experience etc did not encourage me to pursue a wider discussion
>
> all of wch sounds grumpy
>
> but he has explained what he means by _accessible_.... I think that's a
> first for anyone using the word
>
> all best
>
> L
>
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