Liz:
A quick reply, as I'm still not yet dressed (ah sleep, that knits up the
raddled sleeve of the pullover!) ...
Liz to dave:
> I am not sure if you are attacking Carol Ann for her language or her
content
> Dave. Guns firing on all fronts it seems!
I don't know CAD's work at all (a rather large proviso!) so I was responding
to what dave said the Guardian said that she said. Even the longer and
earlier Guardian piece doesn't seem to give the full text of the original
statement in context [anyone know where it appeared originally?], but
obviously in allowing it to go through an interview (I suppose the later
David Jones review she wouldn't have control over) implies that she's
prepared to stand by it.
> I think you misrepresent her pov
> about language though. She is commenting out of a drive to democratise
> poetry and to write in a language that people will recognise. There is a
> long history for that drive (Lyrical Ballads for instance). It is from
this
> position that she has no patience with 'interesting' or 'poetic' words.
This did occur to me -- but there is the more +immediate+ context (that I
think dave draws attention to later in his post) in the more recent attempts
to "democratise" language in Philip Larkin and The Movement -- the Rule of
the Lowest Common Denominator. Tony Harrison would be a counter-example, of
someone who consciously attempts to write populist poetry without selling
the language pass. Having grown-up in the shadow of Larkin and the
Movement, I don't want to go back there.
Anyway, thanks for posting the CAD poem ... gives me something to get my
teeth into [so to speak <g>].
I notice that Gill Spraggs includes one Carol Ann Duffy poem in her
excellent anthology, _Love Shook My Senses: Lesbian Love Poems_, which
suggests that Gill, like Liz, does rate her poetry.
Cheers,
Robin
> from 'Steam'
>
> Quite recently, if one of us sat up,
> or stood, or stretched, naked,
>
> a nude pose in soft pencil
> behind tissue paper
>
> appeared, rubbed itself out, slow,
> with a smoky cloth.
>
> Say a matter on months. This hand reaching
> through the steam
>
> to touch the real thing shockingly there,
> not a ghost at at all.
>
> Carol Ann Duffy
> from Mean Time
> (which I think is her best book)
>
> PS: Short sentences with no main verb? sat
> up/stood/stretched/appeared/rubbed/reaching???
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