For someone such as myself who has little or no knowledge of Talk poetry
Mairead's talk/paper was an enlightening introduction of how poetry,
criticism and humour can meld. The weekend has sent me off on a variety of
reading avenues including some of Tony Lopez's essays and other critical
writings in the area and Mairead has given me an excellent practical view
of what I am reading. The gender thing escaped me too although Lyn
Hejinian did mention the need for more female voices in the new poetry.
But with papers dealing with her work as well as Dickinson and Armantrout
the content was there as was Lyn by her presence. As far as the percentage
of male plenary speakers compared to female doesn't that speak of the
society we live; the conference organisers drew from the available
resources and we are a long way from gender equality at all levels of our
society. Someday maybe we will look across our institutions and see an
even distribution of genders and races but for now all we can do is try to
change it from the bottom up. I suppose the question is can we ever
achieve a completely equal society when we organise our selves in
societies that rely on binary opposition and can we achieve the equality
we desire when the systems of power keep reproducing these binaries? Maybe
I have gotten too far off on a tangent here?


Andrew Browne

 > I agree with Piers - to try to make some sort of vague gender judgement
> based
> on Mark's summaries is a step too far. I thoroughly enjoyed Andrea's paper
> on
> early Raworth, and not just because I love early Raworth. I also enjoyed
> Mairead's 'talk' but, like Piers says, it seemed to have nothing to do
> with Talk
> Poetry or David Antin - except as markers showing what Mairead's 'talk'
> was
> not. Which is fine I suppose, especially as it worked - it was v. funny -
> a kind
> of outsiding the in of self indulgence into a celebration.. It told us a
> lot
> about Mairead, but nothing about Talk Poetry and I found that quite
> charming -
> a talk as poetry or poetry as talk in which Talk Poetry itself is negated.
> The
> problem is that if someone was there specifically to find out about Talk
> Poetry - and not a lot of people this side of the water have much
> conception of it
> - then such a personage just might have wished they'd gone to a different
> talk.
>
> Tim A.   </HTML>
>