On 9 Apr 2004 at 20:27, Helen Clare wrote:
> I think this is probably another attempt by Marcus to wind people up -
> or at least create for himself an opportunity to be a "clever dick".
> Some small irony in that this has been treated as a serious submission
> - an easy mistake to make for those familiar with previous
> contributions. If we have to tolerate him on this list can we at least
> take him less seriously. Best wishes
It's a perfectly serious submission; the craftsmanship in its
presentation is fully as skillful as any of yours. The notion that
you have to have a completely original idea in order to write a poem
would disqualify every poem I've seen in this forum -- nothing has
been completely original; it's all been about stuff that thousands of
other poets have written about for tens of thousands of years.
Poetry is rhetoric, it's presentation, not thinking, not philosophy.
We all take our ideas from the common stock of human ideas and we do
our best to make them significant or important -- or just amusing.
And it's as honorable work to be amusing as to be significant. The
notion that only uptight old women of either gender who have no sense
of humor can be poets is a pernicious one.
Marcus
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