>Oddly, poetry's status - the kind of thing that makes Deans fund it without
really being interested in the art, or publishers have it adorning their
lists to give them "class" - is not about its accessibility, but a
perception of its inaccessibility, a sense, the ghost I suppose of the
romantic ideal, that poetry and art somehow indicate that one is a better
human being and that civilisation is worth having and so should be paid its
dues.  Such a hypothetical Dean would be most unlikely to fund a Pam Ayres,
because she wouldn't carry the same cultural resonance. This idea seems to
me as erroneous as the accessibility thing, and just as devitalising.  And
these days it's diminishing returns anyway, as that status shrivels before
>the bottom line.

I agree with most of the rest of your post, Alison, but this makes me wonder. 
Perhaps it's a matter of geography and the deans with whom you have dinner 
and attend panels are bewitched by 'the ghost...of the romantic ideal' "a 
perception of (poetry's inaccessibility), but here the deans of whom I know 
enough to say anything  oversee any number of public programs, for the arts, 
but also for math and science, international economies, etc, in which they are 
not versed and not personally interested, and these are all 'inaccessible' in the 
sense of the dean  having a knowledge or interest in that particular realm and in 
terms of the number of people or students interested in those fields and in 
terms of their difficulty and complexity. So at dinner the dean turns the same 
smile upon everyone, even though there is the same attendant blankness behind 
the smile concerning the particular discipline, and so what he talks about is the 
ideal at work, that education and civilization are worth having, that intellectual 
diversity and activity is worth encouraging, and, yes, that such makes for a 
better person, a more vital and well rounded college community, as well as the 
larger community. But it's not as if he supports poetry for its romantic 
inaccessibility, it's because it's considered an aspect of human and intellectual 
life and so subsumed in this ideal.  I don't know as this is a romantic ideal, here 
it's usually called _classical_ education, coming out of the humanist tradition, 
the ideal of the well-rounded person being behind it. This isn't to say that all 
deans are thus, because there's been a 
great push in university education toward the vocational, and these 
administrations think the ideal of the university as an intellectual vitalizing of 
culture and society is outmoded. But  where the ideal still holds, poetry doesn't 
have some special romantic spot in this for its inaccessibility for it's no more 
inaccessible than quantum physics or panels on Urdu linguistics. As for funding 
Pam Ayres, probably not, since she's not as well-known here, but "cultural 
resonance" does not have to mean serious literary cultural resonance, and so 
many universities fund readings both by obscure and difficult poets and popular 
and more accessible ones. And I really don't think the ideal of civilization being 
worth having, or that funding inaccessible and difficult arts and sciences as of 
vital value to students, the university community, and the general community is 
so bad, or 'devitalizing' of poetry, or astrophysics, or the study of Urdu. That 
ideal has been replaced in many schools by an emphasis upon votech training, 
with a resulting loss in these sorts of programs, and I don't think there's an 
upsurge of health in poetry or in general as a result.  I'd been thinking that it 
was not so great that various universities here are planning on cutting 
astrophysics, theoretical math, linguistics, ancient and classical languages, and 
a number of arts programs, including some related to poetry, and it's just a loss 
and driven by the bottom line of covering one's losses.

Best,

Rebecca


---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 13:17:53 +1100
>From: Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>  
>Subject: Re: down with the down with poetry crowd  
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>Hi Finnegan
>
>On 21/1/05 12:15 PM, "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> No, the people who said Yes were influenced by what they believed Poetry
>> (capital P) meant to the culture and the community. How were they 
influenced?
>> Richard Howard would have you believe they read a beautiful poem they 
didn't
>> understand sitting by a fireplace one evening and a dove descended over 
their
>> heads and whispered 'This is high art, support it'. What do you believe?
>
>I think that's rather a bowdlerisation of the argument that Bernstein and
>Palatella were making.  Palatella, for example, isn't against poetry being
>popular per se: he questions the usefulness, as Bernstein does, of the kinds
>of popularisations of poetry that assure people that poems are not, after
>all, poems and so can be approached without fear and loathing.  He takes the
>example of Emily Dickinson, who is certainly widely read, and claims that
>her public popularity results at least in part from her stubborn adherence
>to her interiority as a writer.  He suggests that in these times of many
>competing media, it would be far better to concentrate on the particular
>experiences only poetry can offer, rather than saying it's just as much fun
>as football.  This makes sense to me.   It's the same, I think, for all
>minority arts: theatre that tries to compete with films is not only on a
>hiding to nothing, but it is forgetting what it is that makes it unique.  If
>people are sold poetry as something that is merely an easy option or a
>variation of stand up comedy, aren't they going to be taken back if they
>encounter stuff that manifestly isn't that?  (It's Jeremy Prynne, btw).
>
>Oddly, poetry's status - the kind of thing that makes Deans fund it without
>really being interested in the art, or publishers have it adorning their
>lists to give them "class" - is not about its accessibility, but a
>perception of its inaccessibility, a sense, the ghost I suppose of the
>romantic ideal, that poetry and art somehow indicate that one is a better
>human being and that civilisation is worth having and so should be paid its
>dues.  Such a hypothetical Dean would be most unlikely to fund a Pam Ayres,
>because she wouldn't carry the same cultural resonance. This idea seems to
>me as erroneous as the accessibility thing, and just as devitalising.  And
>these days it's diminishing returns anyway, as that status shrivels before
>the bottom line.
>
>Was it Bernstein who said that what matters is that poets make poetry that
>matters?  No matter, it's something I agree with.  If poets want audiences,
>then people have to be excited by the art, to feel that it is, in whatever
>way, a part of their lives that they don't want to do without.
>
>Best
>
>A
>
>
>Alison Croggon
>
>Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>Editor, Masthead:  http://masthead.net.au
>Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com