Bob,

> You've given me an extra bit of head space to roam around in without
> invalidating
> the spaces I'm familiar with. You're good at doing that.
>
> It may be a truism that poetry also involves discovery and if so the
> presence of a
> self in the poem can persuade a reader that such a space is navigable,
that
> it
> can be lived in rather than merely constructed. If it works like that,
okay,
> but if
> not maybe the poet should take a step back. Which applies comes down
> to a matter of taste, I suppose, on the part of the reader and to some
> extent
> contemporary fashion. BTW isn't it interesting that trends in society can
> move in
> opposite directions at the same time. After all suppression of the self in
> favour of a more
> professional/objective/egalitarian/enlightened/non-directive
> stance is a traditional goal in mnay jobs, but if anything most
professions
> that I have come across have emphasised it less in recent years, in favour
> of more personal involvement, or at least the semblance of it.
>
> Good luck with your tour,
>
> Colin
>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 11:46 AM
Subject: Re: sub/interview Colin (& more!)


Hi Colin,
1. I'll keep all the previous posts stuck on the bottom of this to help
someone else who may be reading through it get a sense of what's going on...
(it makes it easier to follow, but it makes this mega-long!)
2. I'll number things (to help me follow what's going on!)
3. I'll say what I was getting at, maybe a little clearer...
4. Here goes: When I read the revised drafts I first of all read about
peacocks (brill, I thought, that's a canny, new, exciting, way of seeing
what's going on!). Then, with the interviewed people being peacocks, I got
messages about the panel (and felt the discomfort of at least one of the
members of the interviewing panel). Then I found that I was also getting
messages from the poet - and I felt I didn't need this extra layer! I felt
the poem was doing the biz without the poet's interventions... I felt I had
a view of the world that was enough to change how I saw the world (and
interviews!).
5. I guess I saw the poet's intervention a bit like some painters painting
themselves into their pictures (in mirrors, in crowd scenes, etc) and I
didn't see the need for that here.
6. I feel I know enough about the writer's
thoughts/feelings/impulse-to-write without having the writer intervene. To
allude to what Helen's written in Whimsy, I feel the author need not exactly
be dead as invisible.
7. I've slipped one or two comments in below as well, that sort of relate
much more to your continuing thoughts than to the poem.
Bob
who's still coughing... but who's now grinning again!




>From: hui dewar <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: sub/interview Colin (& more!)
>Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:40:13 -0000
>
>Bob,
>
>........and then again this is interesting. Is it ever possible to escape
>the subjective component that the "I" implies? I don't know that we can
>ever
>get to things in themselves, without the subjective part  influencing our
>perception of things and hence what we write.  He, she,it or you and it's
>still there.
I AGREE! WE'RE STILL THERE! (BUT NOT SWIMMING SO CLOSE TO THE SURFACE WE CAN
BE CLEARLY SEEN)
And if we could would it be good thing? It might be good for a
>documentary on the Crimean war, but for a poem? Isn't one of the most
>exciting things about poetry the sense that we might make contact with how
>another person sees things or saw things once over such vastness of time
>and
>space? (Talking about other people's poems here, not mine BTW). Emotional
>baggage perhaps, but then much of human existence is emotional baggage.
>Take
>too much of it away and you might have an uninteresting life or risk an
>uninteresting poem. Realising that the poem was written by another person
>and that there is something of them in it enriches its possibilities, at
>least for me. And what about use of the personal pronoun to explore
>opposing
>points of view?
I AGREE! THERE'S GREAT FUN, FOR ME AT LEAST, WRITING POEMS WHERE THE "I"
ISN'T ME - IT'S THE "I" OF THE POEM (THAT I'VE INVENTED IN THE POEM!)
Wouldn't it be possible to have a sequence of poems in which
>each took a different view point? They would be inconsistent as a whole,
>and
>hence undermine a reductionist interpretation of any single poem. And what
>about  identification with a poem in the first person, those rare moments
>when a poem says so exactly what you wish you'd said that you can't help
>learning the poem and saying it aloud? YEH! LYRICAL POEMS WORK LIKE THAT -
>AND, FOR ME, SO DO POEMS THAT AIN'T LYRICAL, WHERE I THINK "THAT'S HOW I
>SEE IT, TOO!"

Can't poems be like everyday
>conversation and acknowledge that even if we do inhabit a subjective
>reality
>the affairs of the human heart and mind go on, as they always did?
NO! POEM'S, UNLIKE REAL LIFE, HAVE BOUNDARIES, HAVE A FRAME ROUND THEM,
THAT'S WHAT MAKES THEM A WORK OF ART.
The
>content may be different in part, because we live in an altered world but
>the way in which people use language in everyday conversation hasn't
>changed
>much, as far as I can tell. If poetry became too etherialised would it not
>risk getting out of touch with how ordinary people actually talk to one
>another, like a private language known only to the initiated few??
YEH. I, TOO, WANT POEMS TO BE GIVEN TO OTHERS (AND RECIEVED AS GIFTS) AND
THERE'S NO NEED TO INSCRIBE EVERY GIFT WE GIVE. AND I GUESS WE OFTEN OFFER
AN EXPLANATION AS TO WHY WE'VE GIVEN A GIFT (I OFTEN DO, ANYWAY!) BUT THAT'S
MORE TO DO WITH ME THAN THE ACTUAL GIFT... ONCE GIVEN, THE GIFT IS THEIRS.
>
>I hope this doesn't come across as challenging Bob. That's not how  mean it
>at all, and if you're still unwell or can't be bothered to explain to one
>more dofus idiot for the umpteenth time this month, or are just busy then
>no
>need to respond. You'll see I've put most of it as questions, suggesting as
>far as I can that I'm not insisting on any point of view. Certainly not
>saying that poetry be written by anyone any differently from just the way
>they choose. It's just an opportunity for me to learn something and who
>knows I might see things differently once I've thought about it some more.
>I
>still recollect our discussion of place names last time and have
>experimented in some poems, tho' I haven't subbed them yet.
>
>Thanks for the crit and keep it coming.
>
>Colin
>
>
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 4:24 PM
>Subject: Re: sub/interview Colin (& more!)
>
>
>Hi Colin & Mike...
>And others who're reading!
>I've found it really interesting reading through all the comments about the
>two drafts of this poem.
>I've been delighted by those who've seen the strengths of the new version
>and saddened by those who prefer the more original version.
>Why?
>Maybe because I see the original version as having "too much of the poet"
>in
>it (when the poet needn't be there)
>and the newer version still had a bit of the poet in the poem (that I felt
>could go!).
>"Poems don't need the poet" is overstating it - cos they're often written
>lyrically - but writing without the 1st person pronoun (pronoun = is for
>pronouncing things) works! It gives a lot more. Doesn't it? Let the
>peacocks
>be heard behind the poem, not the poet!
>Bob
>
>
>
>
> >From: Mike Horwood <[log in to unmask]>
> >Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Re: sub/interview Colin
> >Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 12:40:01 +0200
> >
> > > Hello Colin,
> >               After I´d given my preference between these two versions I
> >had a look to see what others had said and noticed that most had
>preferred
> >the rewrite. I´ve read through the two versions again but I have to say
> >that I stay with my initial judgement. I prefer the original for various
> >reasons, amongst which I would include some of the phrases that appear in
> >the original but are cut from the rewrite - `what we ask them is awful´,
> >`we prod them with questions´ for example. I also like the distinction
> >between peacocks and people in the opening of the original since it
>forces
> >the word and the idea of people into the reader´s mind. I don´t know if
>it
> >was your intention, but I find myself reading the treatment of the
> >peacock´s as emblematic of treatment of people (from other cultures?
> >immigrants? refugees?) and although the people are mentioned in a
>negative
> >construction the mere presence of the word brings the idea into the
> >picture. I also liked the wider range of animal references in the
>original,
> >though I noticed some preferred the rewrite for the opposite reason. The
> >image of the flower for the peacocks´ beaks opening also drew criticism
>and
> >I may be quite wrong about this but I found it successful. Truly a bird´s
> >beak is nothing like a flower. Neither does this poem exhibit a rigid
> >relationship to the natural world. Interviewers don´t ordinarily force
> >their hands down peacocks´ throats to squeeze their hearts like an
>orange.
> >What I mean is that in the fantastical terms of the poem I could accept
>the
> >metamorphosis of the beak into a flower. I pictured it visually in a way
> >which would be quite feasible on film with modern computer technology.
> >There were some phrases which might be better taken from the rewrite. I
> >think I prefer `discard what´s left´ to `expel the pith´ and I´m
>undecided
> >about the `cold clammy hands // clutch at mine like claws´ or `each bony
> >grip´ but I think if I had to chose I might go for the second, which
>comes
> >from the rewrite.
> >As always, this is only a personal opinion and obviously suspect since so
> >many others thought differently, but I feel it would be a shame if the
>poem
> >gets so refined in rewriting that it loses its immediacy and visual
> >qualities. I found it a very powerful piece and far more effective than
>the
> >(overly-)descriptive style of Rowing.
> >
> >
> >
> >Best wishes,   Mike
> >
> >
> > > Lähettäjä: Colin dewar <[log in to unmask]>
> > > Päiväys: 2004/01/18 su PM 04:40:01 GMT+02:00
> > > Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
> > > Aihe: sub/interview/thanks
> > >
> > > Thanks for all feedback.
> > >
> > > Helen,
> > >
> > > I agree that the rewrite is less didactic..... and that there is
>always
> >scope for a third version.
> > > As for the explanatory role of the last stanza...interesting point.
>I'd
> >thought of it as opening the poem up rather than closing it down. Whilst
> >the poem may deal with the unconscious sadism that can energise the most
> >civilised of processes, the last part develops the possibility that what
>we
> >know of a person mostly is tiny, like a snippet cut from a paper ring. We
> >do not know whether it is a torus or a mobius strip, because we only have
>a
> >snippet.........but by nature we are inclined to extrapolate (from the
> >small segments of time that we spend with people). We know less than we
> >think, repudiating the teasing-out and boiling down process that the
> >interviewers consciously imagine themselves involved in and which might
> >justify their ruthlessness. Thanks for the crit Helen and keep it coming.
> > >
> > > Mike,
> > >
> > > You asked which I preferred and have given me an excuse to indulge my
> >predilection for small print (which you'll pass over in the blink of an
>eye
> >I hope). I prefer the original because it offered a variety of animals
>and
> >allowed more specific images of unkindness. Generally when you meet
>people
> >in real life who have ever been unkind to animals (pulling off frogs legs
> >as children etc) then the warning bells sound. It means that their
>sadistic
> >impulses are well developed and it's only a matter of time before you or
> >s.o. else falls foul of them. This is distinct from aggressive or
> >destructive impulses or callous indifference. I refer to people who enjoy
> >cruelty rather than just getting someone or something out of the way. Of
> >course we all have sadistic impulses, of which we are varyingly aware,
>but
> >for most of us they are just a small part of our overall mental makeup
>and
> >we rarely act on them.   Nevertheless I enjoyed getting feedback for the
> >original and putting it towards version 2. I often find that in doing so
>I
> >see things in a different way.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Colin
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
>
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