Dear Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Philpott" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 10:36 PM
Subject: Re: connection
> 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.
At the time I thought or persuaded myself that I thought everything was fine
[with what was being done by the General Council of the poetry society in
the middle 70s - note for Trevor)
> 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.
What happened stands for me as a guide to how not to waste time. To do
smaller things. What happened and the way it happened contained its own
failure
Who did what to whom why & when is
> worthless data -
Generally, yes. I had no interest for instance in the boycott of The Poetry
Soc - whicbh was a reaction to what was seen as betrayal - after ACGB took
over. I saw no point.
But when I hear that period spoken of as a golden age, mythologised - by
those who werent there, then I feel it is useful to point out that the
attendances were often atrocious, that there was no unity and that some of
the behaviour - like the opinion I cited - was bordering on the daft
As we retell our stories, we alter them. At an intense period of change and
personal misfortune at the beginning of last decade, I kept a daily diary
and was astonished at how, unless one is careful, one reconstructs the past
and that kind of care seems to me a lot to do with the craft of poetry
> it is a pretty fairytale I have in my head,
ok
i had that bit cut out and since then I havent had these disturbing myths
> 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.
indeed
me too
but...
L
|