Bloody hell, guys, would you (plural) care to summarise what history
it is which is in danger of being mythologized here. I recall being
frequently thwacked around the chops, figuratively of couse, when I
first got onto this list seven years ago, or so, with all this talk
of MAJOR HISTORICAL EVENTS I'd never heard of. I still wouldn't back
myself to give even a minimally coherent account of this event to
anyone.
So, would either, or both in tandem, of you, care to summarize events
for the many listees here who might just remain baffled if you leave
it like this, but might be genuinely interested in the history.
Then, afterwards, we can all settle down to a good argument, or not.
Cheers,
Trevor
(And I apologise if either of you objects to the mode of address, but
I'm not going all the way back up the screen to change it . . . )
>Lawrence
>
>>
>>I intended to send it front channel
>
>- that is, a response to my last posting here, to which I then replied
>B/C, with this present posting as riposte. I insert names to make easier
>reading:
>>
>>Feel free to send this back f-c, which I would prefer
>>
>PP:
>>> No, it's a mythology. Sorry to bring back your bad memories. I do
>>> remember moments of connection. My memory may well not be accurate. But
>>> I find these memories, real or not, valuable - as giving a possible
>>> "once-and-future" utopia.
>>
>LU:
>>No, it isn't. I don't know what you mean by bad memories. I remember it
>>rather clearly and know what a fuc k up it is. If it's a mythology then who
>>believes it? Not me. No golden age
>>
>PP:
>>> I could argue too about the differences between the mediation of human
>>> contact via electronic means and the difficulties of travel. Not I think
>>> comparable (- trust me, I'm a media lecturer).
>>
>LU:
>>Trust me, I was one too. There are of course differences, but both processes
>>are technological. It is, for me, to do with distance. When I am in Cornwall
>>I go to things all the time because I can walk
>>
>PP:
>>> Genuinely sorry to have caused any pain over either Poetry Society or
>>> SubVoicive. I attended readings in Holborn I think in the early 90s,
>>> even read - never quite regularly enough for that connection quite to be
>>> made by me.
>>
>LU;
>>As I say, no pain caused. I just see no justification for claiming there is
>>a viable mythology
>
>My position is, Lawrence, that, yes, if you say it was all a fuck up at
>the prelapsarian Poetry Society, OK, I'm sure it was. Most things are
>when you are doing them. That it wasn't all a fuck up is the first thing
>I'd want to hold to: in my innocence I found it good until it was
>destroyed. That that was my experience is also a valid observation.
>
>That the story presents a possibility of some different organisation of
>affairs from how they are now, and that we can have that possibility
>before us is even more important. Who did what to whom why & when is
>worthless data - it is, to repeat that word, the mythology constructed
>about what was there & what might have been, which is valuable & usable,
>that's what I'm trying to emphasise. I suspect, from Trevor's earlier
>post, this is, like many a mythic theme, cross-cultural, of that
>wonderful time & place when poets got once together & connected. I would
>suspect all poetic cultures hold this. The myth is not about what
>happened in that bizarre building in Earls Court - it's about how for a
>short period there seemed an actual possibility of some sort of
>community & connection between a number of poets.
>
>(vide Ernst Bloch's The Utopian Appeal of Popular Culture at this point)
>- in other words, it is a pretty fairytale I have in my head, compared
>to the unknowable mess that "really" occurred, and which you could
>present me with (or with one of many, contradictory versions of). But:
>this fairytale, in these hard & desperate times, provides a model for
>what connections poets could make, and reveals the inadequacy of what
>there is at present. The myth fulfils and thus reveals a desire in us
>for a community of poets.
>
>You can find this community you say via electronic media; I would prefer
>it via the different forms of human contact possible when people
>encounter eachother in physical places.
>best wishes
--
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http://www.soundeye.org/trevorjoyce
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