Um, Lawrence, Todd, I hate to intrude into what looks like a family
argument, but ...
<<
> Nor is "beat" or "street" really any more
a blurb or marketing term than "innovative" or "avant-garde" or "mainstream"
or, for that matter, "poetry" itself.
My objection was to _beat-to-street_ . I understand _beat_ and understand
_street_. Both are misused, but I know them and din't need the explanation.
>>
beat -- strictly, upper-case Beat -- is surely a pretty strictly defined
USAmerican term? Kerouac&friends in prose, Ginsberg and Corso and
Ferlinghetti in poetry ...
At least, that's how I'd take it.
(Jazz aside, but that broadens it too much.)
"street" -- and again this turns a bit on whether or not you spell it
upper-case or lower -- is slippier.
This bounces across the Pond, from the sixties Albert Hall incarnations to
M&M today via sheesh Guy Debord and Situationist manifestations ...
rap, open-mike readings, poetry slams, gangsta -- performance poetry
subsidised by the social services.
(That's cruel, but it's a little of where it's at.)
But Lawrence's assertion that he doesn't need an explanation of "street"
bothers me just a little ...
When did the term originate? The Street comes before the street -- and crap
like "street cred" and Ali G's "Respect!"
Sorry, this can't make a lot of sense, but I was gnawing on this issue only
last night, and Lawrence's assertion (?) that to him, the term "street" is
transparent just a little baffles me.
There's only one poet who I'd think totally locks street and the Street, way
before the term(s) appeared, and that's Villon.
And bloody hell look what happened to him.
Robin
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