I'm surprised the Britpo have been apparently silent on feedback from the
Birkbeck Poetics conference last weekend.
I was only able to make the Saturday but enjoyed the variety of stimulating
in-put however I was left thinking some of us need to come at poetics from a
new angle as the 'new' is becoming old hat; so hats off to Brian Catlin who has
always appeared to be doing something different whenever I've come across him.
A friend suggested that the 'new' is becoming mainstream. I don't think
that, if 'mainstream' is Faber, Bloodaxe and Waterstones or even academia
however it may mean we're in a bit of a watershed and have got used to multi-media,
performance, language intrigues. This may say something about our dulled
responses becoming inured to fresh resonances or is it that as I said, we need to
come at texts from a different slant?
Approximately 3 and a half women slots among 26 or so, incidentally!
This isn't meant to be negative, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Thanks for a great day to renew awareness of some of what's going on.
Tilla
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