Trevor:
I think I meant something like the opposite of that.
I was being facetious, and I personally don't complain about anything. It
has just been my experience mostly that poetry and the transfer of currency
having nothing to do with each other. But it was serious too because I can
think of people to whom this entire business of State or other money,
thousands and thousands of it, going this way and that, to and around the
"arts" in and across the countries of the earth, is all miles above their
heads because they just go on creating, poetry or whatever, and never see
the faintest sign of it, and they spend a whole lifetime like this. And
there is of course no reason to assume their work to be inferior. They may
get the odd perk now and then, but basically the whole structure is utterly
remote.
And i can think of people in this position to whom some "money for the
arts" would have been useful and made a real difference. I can think for
instance of the poet Michael Haslam who last I heard was working in a waste
textile mill jumping up and down on bales of stuff to compress them. Before
that he was a roofer. I can immediately think of a handful of poets like
that in Ireland. And it's not necessarily because they are linguistically
innovative or suchlike, for I can also think of people who write in a
perfectly plain and acceptable "mainstream" sort of way and do it very well
with a lot of wit and skill, and to whom likewise the entire arts--money
thing is another world, somewhere beyond the horizon. I can think of very
fine painters who don't cut pigs in half. Etc.
This doesn't imply any blame for those who do get this money loaded onto
them, but I find the whole structure quite mysterious and don't know what
the criteria are for the distribution, it seems completely haphazard. And
certainly, as in your case, and the Cork event, I occasionally think Well,
someone or something different and worthwhile got some of the moolah for a
change, and that's good news. But how it works is entirely beyond me.
I think maybe it is still opeated round the concept of the exceptional
creative person. But at the same time I think what funders dread most of
all is the whiff of failure, of what "nobody wants", and the basic
principal is to reward success, since it is seen as an investment, as in a
product, so you give the stuff mainly to those who have proved that they
don't really need it. Obviously this is the case with a commercially based
writing like prose fiction and its prizes, but to what extent the entire
reward industry operates like this I don't know.
As Irish as Tom Raworth I reckon, i.e. not actually actually. But
non-actually sincerely,
Peter
>> >>Money? You mean some people actually get money for these activities?
>> >>Poetry, writing, painting, music.....? Good heavens above.
>
>Well, surely you're not, with however delicate an irony, suggesting
>that only booksellers and the like should profit from poetry? As a
>taxpayer of many years standing, I retain the right to curiosity as
>to why, of all the spondulicks I've selflessly had extracted from me
>over the years to fund the Irish Arts Council, not a penny has ever
>gone to support the SoundEye Festival.
>
>It is, after all, by far the most enterprising literary festival in
>the southern part of Ireland these days, even if their lineup is
>sometimes a little suspect. I gather we're to expect some Cambridge
>toff, name of Riley, to be declaiming to us next summer. Next you
>know, he'll be claiming to be Irish!
>
>best,
>
>T
>--
>------------------------------------------------------
>http://www.soundeye.org/trevorjoyce
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