Bob,  nice riposte.

BTW I subbed this po. partly as an experiment. Some years ago, a fiend of
mine had narrowly avoided a career in art history. I would have tho't that a
career in art history would fine thing. But he didn't. I asked him what
would have happened to his taste in paintings if he had stayed in this area
and he said that it would have become horribly sophisticated. Afterwards I
wondered if my taste in po. was becoming too sophisticated as reader or
writer (just from doing so much of it). I don't mean that my po. would seem
sophisticated to anyone else, just as a subjective truth, in comparison to
more humble origins. So I made a point of writing  some consciously
unsophisticated poems. So what would happen if they were given to a
sophisticated audience? I predicted that people would ignore or criticise
heavily, but my expectations have been proved wrong, in that this poem for
instance was not universally disliked. 'course I know that there is a fair
bit of politeness built in, even in a critical arena such as this, and that
a lot have voted with their mouse and said nothing (which is cogent enough).

.....but things are never so simple and if you have read this far you must
have nystagmus, for another thing that was on my mind was the treatment of
children, at least in the Eurocentric countries (includes places like NZ for
my purposes ). They are given comparatively little emotional support in
comparison to most other  cultures - a debatable claim but no matter.
Psychodynamic theory would predict that if this is carried out on a large
scale it would create a lot of adults running around thinking and feeling
"who needs the world when I've got me?", alongside some more positive
aspects such as enhanced individuation, which simplified and seen from the
outside by other cultures would be characteristic of Western culture. Anyway
it occurred to me that the childhood aspect is itself a small part of the
equation. The parents could be missing out too. Indeed how often do you hear
parents saying that the brats are the bane of their lives and they would
shoot them if they could and so on; jests perhaps said often enough but said
often enough could persuade some people that they have really done their
children a huge favour by bringing them into the world and the whole
business of being a parent is the most awful thing? In other cultures it is
seen as one of the richest and most rewarding parts of life, despite the
hardships that it often brings.

No need to pay any attention to this. I have the confidence to go on at
length in print because I know that its not the same as pinning people down
in convo, cos a.o. can just scan on and do their own thing.  Thanks for the
crit, thoughtful as always.

BW

Colin



----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 11:38 AM
Subject: Re: sub/sleeping


> The same size as a breadfruit you ol' fruit!!!!
> Bob
> Who likes the comparison because he can't remember how big a breadfruit
is -
> but who feels the comparison has an unusuality/magic/poetry about it.
> Ande who thinks "turnips" get compared to heads in disparaging ways but
> "bread" & "fruit" sound much more wholesome, good, etc.
>
>
> >From: Christina Fletcher <[log in to unmask]>
> >Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Re: sub/sleeping
> >Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 03:06:22 EST
> >
> >Well, yes.  But what size is a child's head?
> >bw
> >christina
> >
> > > Breadfruit is ...er..... about the size of a child's head.
> >
>
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