On Mar 31, 2005, at 4:07 PM, Alison Croggon wrote:
> Hmm. He's certainly spitting chips. Like Roger, I'm baffled by the
> attacks
> on Tuma's anthology, which I find such a stimulating and fascinating
> and
> necessary take on post war British poetry.
The attacks on Tuma's anthology are surely about the reading of
literary history that it offers - a reading that challenges the lazy
and unexamined assumptions that have dominated most anthologies (and
much criticism) over the past half century: poetry from Hardy to Simon
Armitage. Hence, it's "bizarre," a "misreading," and thank heavens its
not available in the UK (which needs to be protecting by such dangerous
disinformation).
Marketing for Astley seems to mean making poetry fit for particular
occasions - weddings, funerals, births - or turning it into an
over-the-counter anodyne, endorsed by stars of stage and screen.
> I don't follow these arguments closely enough to be totally aware of
> the
> debate, such as it is. But the gender thing is there, for sure; it's
> all
> men arguing. All these mutual accusations of "damage"...while poor
> little
> princess poetry sits downcast in her castle, the noble knights have
> these
> strange little tourneys to defend her virtue. What you get is a
> feeling that
> everyone is threatened by something; a monster called "democracy" of
> "academics" or "postmodernists" or whatever. Snicker snack!
>
Probably right, and I'd be interested to hear more, though the way
gender and minority status gets yoked by Astley into the
"representative" status of the marketplace - it's over there in the
identity aisle - surely gives one pause. I suppose Kathleen Jamie has
joined in with these battles, and Edna Longley's anthology of a few
years back (wasn't that Bloodaxe as well?) was polemical too (as far as
I recall).
> I notice that Astley takes a swipe at Paterson and O'Brien down the
> bottom
> of the article. So he's not quite in that boat, either. And if he's
> right
> in his points about so-called "minority" poetry (women, black,
> whatever),
> then there's an issue to be addressed there.
>
Mea culpa. Lazy skimming.
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