Oh Alison
of course I read what you said, although I get deluged by e-mail anything
that bears the name Alison Croggon always get close attention, I have a deep
respect for your intelligence and abilities as a writer. I agree with you
about the central metaphor, it does seem to me on re-reading rather
unsuccessful, but you know as a fellow writer how variable these things can
be, yesterday I wrote a piece again just off the cuff that has received
already approbation from many quarters, today's effort didn't quite make the
grade, but maybe after say 16 months of revision it might get there. These
things are never predictable.
Can I use in closing our wonderful Leicester term of friendship, the only
one I know of in English that is totally unsexist, as blokes will use it to
each other as well as to women, or gays to one other or to 'straights', yes?
ok me duck
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: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 4:02 AM
Subject: Re: The Joys of Shit
Dave, if you read what I said, it was simply my (brief and by no
means definitive) analysis of why that poem does not work for me. If
it is an anti-war poem, then - for me - it doesn't work because the
bodily disgust is primary over the disgust against violence. And it
seemed to me, as I said, that the central metaphor was somewhat
unexamined, which would hardly be surprising, since as you say, you
posted a poem you wrote in a hurry and very recently.
I didn't at any point talk about "forbidding" or banning anything;
rather, I said explicitly you had every right to write what you
liked. Nor did I discuss any intentionality. My reminder about
sexism was general, and in response to Jill's and Rebecca's posts.
Best
A
>Crumbs, Alison
>
>I hardly know where to begin on this. Well, I have no problem with the
>notion that the poem doesn't work, please remember that it is only
something
>I drafted a few hours ago, I've only just re-read it myself, it's
definitely
>not formally integrated for instance, but I'm at a loss at some comments.
>The metaphor of shitting is meant to predominate, you know the
>colloquialisms on the lines of 'crap falling on your head', that's the
whole
>idea of the piece whether or not it works, that this war is like people
>being shitted on all round. The link of bodily pollution and what is not
>good is ancient in literature, consider the link between money and what is
>thought dirty in Great Expectations for instance. The disgust at the body
is
>about some bodies going wrong, like Generals, however I don't see why
>disgust for the body is in itself a forbidable matter, else all almost of
>Swift should be banned. I do hope your remarks about sexism weren't
>including me, as you well know, I am very scrupulous on this matter and
will
>interrogate myself for months about any possible occurrences, the false
>analogy to birth at the start of my piece was meant to suggest a distortion
>of what should be. I'm not making any claims for it but my intentions were
>good.
>
>In Good Faith and Friendship
>
>
>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: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 1:25 AM
>Subject: Re: The Joys of Shit
>
>
>At 12:36 AM +0100 4/4/03, david.bircumshaw wrote:
>>the linking of waste and birth comes
>>from the view of the war.
>
>Well, it's fair to say it doesn't work for me, and irony doesn't make
>it work either. The disgust focuses on the body rather than on
>violence; the bombers are subservient to the image of shitting,
>rather than the other way around. Sure, sexual violence and war are
>very intimately linked - no war has ever taken place without sexual
>violence, from the enslaving of women by the Greeks to the fall of
>Berlin to Mai Lai, and I know the training of American GIs involves a
>huge dose of conditioning in the rhetoric of sexual violence - but
>birth is by no means an act of violence. I think if you want an
>irony to work in it, you'll have to think it through a little more.
>
>I found Dom's poem less uncomfortable on that front: I read it not so
>much as homophobic as expressing the suppressed homoeroticism of
>violent conflict. There was a similar passage in one of Genet's
>novels - Funeral Rites?
>
>Thanks Rebecca and Jill for your notes on the tone overnight; I might
>remind everyone here of the list rule against sexism.
>
>Best
>
>A
>
>
>A
>--
>
>
>Alison Croggon
>Editor
>Masthead Online
>http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
>
>Home page
>http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
--
Alison Croggon
Editor
Masthead Online
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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