Roger
I don't know whether poetry progresses as such, to my mind its more a matter of keeping the barriers open, and as the barriers are
continually being repainted one has a continual problem of identifying them, even though they are obviously there, when Vicky and I
come out of the flats, which is like walking into a car park, I have to lift the barriers so she can dip her head under them,
although technically the place qualifies for disabled access. There is an eighteen inch pavemented gap along which she could
presumably hop with her walking frame.
This anecdotal metonym is exactly the way I see the poetry scene, like the rest of our society its rotten full of falsity, reality
is denied, one literary critic I do like is Tom Paulin (I like Andrew Duncan too but mustn't say so because he rates me) but Paulin,
who doesn't fall into either the mainstream or avant-garde categories, maintains a barrage of disaffection that to my primitive mind
exactly hinges with why I have to lift the car park barriers on our flats for little Vicky.
She can't do that by herself, some of the security guards realise and flick the switches for her, but otherwise she has to hope
someone is going to help her get out, if say me or another friend isn't there.
So it comes down to reality, that smelly matter, it's quite true to say that false maps can be presented as reality, but, for
heaven's sake, all maps are false, let's at least have some that accord with actuality a bit more than we do!
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Spectare's Web, A Chide's Alphabet
& Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Collett" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 8:19 AM
Subject: Re: Performance Poetry
David,
Surely if the "avant-garde" became coherent the they would by definition
become "mainstream" thereby making space for a "new avant-garde" leading to
a repeat of the present situation. Isn't this how Poetry progresses anyway?
Roger
----- Original Message -----
From: "david.bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 3:52 AM
Subject: Re: Performance Poetry
>I don't quite get your question, Alison, although I am very aware it might
>arise from the slack nature of my own statements. Let me
> try to clarify, within the pitiful poor space of an e-mail, what I mean.
> I'm sure I won't succeed, but here's an attempt. Schools,
> as in foci, of writing, do exist, one can identify with a certain
> congruence what we now call the Metaphysicals of the 17th century,
> although they wouldn't have called themselves that, but it's quire clear
> to see how Donne influenced Herbert, how Herbert influenced
> Vaughan, how Marvell took a middle line among it all, for example.
> Now that is not a call for conventionality, rather that the establishment
> of shared poetic vocabularies, with boundaries that can be
> happily broken, is necessary to making a tradition, a lineage. Tradition
> equals stick-pass-on, as JJ observed. A relay.
> The conventionality I am deploring is a socially based one, while I would
> say that the incoherent and fragmented state of the
> British avant-garde is a fine index to the impotence of political
> opposition in this country these days, as you have no choice
> between one form of conservatives and another anymore.
>
> Does this make any sense at all?
>
> Best
>
> Dave
>
>
> David Bircumshaw
>
> Spectare's Web, A Chide's Alphabet
> & Painting Without Numbers
>
> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 3:30 AM
> Subject: Re: Performance Poetry
>
>
> David
>
> You posit, on the one hand, a drive for conventionality, and on the other
> lament a lack of "coherency". Can you tell me how a demand for
> "coherency"
> is not a conventionalising discourse? Might not it be more interesting to
> look at the diversity of alternative British poetries and see there an
> enormous strength?
>
> Best
>
> A
>
> Alison Croggon
>
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
> Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
>
> --
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