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POETRYETC  2005

POETRYETC 2005

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Subject:

Re: The missing piece

From:

Ken Wolman <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and poetics <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:56:55 -0500

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (81 lines)

MJ Walker wrote:

> I don't think it was anyone terribly famous like that, Ken (how come
> you know all about our Limey royal families? suspicious...)

Well, how can you escape if you're in for years studying the
literature? The history I remember from years back as two things: Henry
vs Francois I vying for the title of European Studhorse, and how lousy
it must've been to be in a royal court where anyone could have accused
anyone of anything. I think it was Thomas Wyatt the Younger (wonder if
they called him "Junior"), son of the poet, who contributed not only to
his own "severance" package but also to Jane Grey's. As for interest in
the Royals, well, it is interesting to witness how badly power resides
inside a human being who is allowed to believe he is something more than
human, with the backing of an interwoven political and theological
system described by Ernst Kantorowicz: the King's interrelated "body
politic" and "body natural," and the implicit idea that an attack on the
King as leader was tantamount to trying to kill his body. Years back I
read G.R. Elton's work on Tudor politics and bios of Henry by Lacey
Baldwin Smith and J.J. Scarisbrick which combined to give a picture of a
man who should have been an inspiring ruler instead of one of history's
great bastards: physically imposing (before he went on the carbs diet),
brighter-than-average, a scholar, theologian, composer and musician, he
may even have written poetry. Yet what is he remembered for?--divorced,
beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Right. "Women I Boffed,"
by Henry, by the Grace of God King of England, Wales, Scotland, and
France. And for the pool of blood or clouds of human ash that poured
down the halls of Hampton Court wherever he put his feet: Thomas More,
John Fisher, Thomas Cromwell (probably a wicked man but an
organizational genius), Robert Barnes, Thomas Culpeper and Francis
Derham (at least Culpeper was guilty of something), Thomas Howard the
Earl of Surrey, Robert Aske, and on and on beyond his own death in 1547
until his understandably psychotic daughter Mary finished the job by
incinerating Thomas Cranmer, who was almost 70 years old at the time,
and who today is regarded by the Anglican Communion as among its first
great martyrs. It's a miracle that Wyatt the poet escaped a free trip
to Tower Hill or worse after he was picked up for interrogation on
suspicion he'd been messing about with Anne Boleyn--there are hints in
the poetry that he and the second Queen had more than a nodding
acquaintance.

Hell, even my wife dug this stuff...she was and probably still is a
Royals-watcher as only Americans can be, though I specialized in the
historical and she liked the present crew, who may be less bloodthirsty
but far less interesting and a lot stupider.

> DON'T ever say the L word about or to Blair - he might have you
> summarily extradited - ooh, I forgot, he only permits the American
> authorities to do that with British citizens for any
> 20-year-old-or-so charges without a whiff of substantial evidence,
> while the US authorities wouldn't hand over Bluebeard - or a Nazi
> scientist; our Ton' will eagerly grovel (at anyone else's expense)
> where Uncle Sam is concerned. And his soldiers do the same dirty work
> on Iraqi
> prisoners, but it takes a pharmacist's assistant for the facts to come
> out at all - no independent Army investigations in the land of
> Official Secrets (meaning practically everything you might ever want
> to know).

Ouch, ugly stuff. I truly did not know that the Brits had become so
servile to the United States that Blair was sitting on Bush's lap like a
Pekinese or Pomeranian. I find one thing very positive about the way
the British manage Parliamentary democracy. They will out loud tell the
PM to get stuffed. I recall hearing BBC radio replays of debates in
Commons, and even that dragon lady Margaret Thatcher caught heckling
from the benches as though she were doing stand-up comedy in a
smoke-filled bar full of drunks. Can you, CAN you, imagine the United
States Congress in joint session doing that while G. W. Bush delivers
the State of the Union address later this month? "Sit down, George,
you're trashed!" Or the Senate over which he is president giving holy
hell to Daddy Warbucks, Dick Cheney? From my mouth to God's ears.

Ken

--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538

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