Crumbseth, on all this stuff!
Trying to take it all in, which isn't easy, on a bleary-eyed morning,
writing as a form of prayer isn't sustainable as an all-over generalisation,
I can see, for example, what Alison is getting at, but it doesn't hold true
all round. For instance, it would be very hard to see much of Herrick or
Dryden as forms of prayer (and remember Herrick was a clergyman). Celan's
no-one towards prayers, yes, but they end you up in the River Seine. Not
that I'm trying to endorse the poetry of the self-satisfied but I couldn't
say though that, for example again, the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
bears any resemblance to a prayer: it is urbane, furtively bawdy, assured
and very much this-worldly. And that from a mediaeval Catholic England.
I could say I wish all poetry was a form of prayer, but if one thinks back
to the origins of writing itself one finds it probably stems from
accounting, the wishes came along with it, but those wishes were connected
with maintaining power and wealth, put but money in thy purse probably lies
at the smelly roots of writing itself, which is not a comfortable thought,
but, pace Lawrence and the pastoral (Hi, Lawrence!) uncomfortable thoughts
are an area one would hope poetry can encounter.
Anyhow, here's to God, as Beckett said, the bastard, he doesn't even
exist!!!
All the Best to All
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Spectare's Web, A Chide's Alphabet
& Painting Without Numbers
http://www.chidesalphabet.org.uk
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