On 24/1/06 10:50 AM, "David Bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> It isn't that poetry is more virtuous than other arts, it's more unwanted
> commercially, but its hidden power is known and avoided in conversation: one
> of the most intriguing things over here after the death of Ted Hughes was
> that Blair took an 'active interest' in the question of his successor.
> We are bombarded with image, with music (of sorts) but to get to grips with
> the power structures of any society you have to look at words, that's where
> The Law sits.
Poetry has its own economies; as I recall, we were fighting about that
earlier. More things than money make the world go round. And I know more
than a few artists in other disciplines who are exactly as poor as poets. (A
composer once told me that composers are lower than poets).
I do agree with you, David, that there can be a tyranny in a culture that
predicates itself on visual image; at its worst, that aesthetic can be
fascist. Or CNN. Still, I do agree that there are more ways of
communicating than through words, and to say that significance exists only
in the written word is to rule out quite a lot of culture, not to say the
potencies that exist/ed in oral cultures or communications.
On the other hand, it has to be said that everyone has the right to ignore
whatever they like. Even poetry. It's just the lack of curiosity I encounter
sometimes, that gobsmacks me.
Best
A
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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