Nathan, I'm sure you're not as uninteresting as Armitage's recent
'translation' of the Gawayne poem seems to be, from what little I've
read of it. Not that I'm going to buy the book, after all, why should
I, only boring people buy books, by his argument. And I'm certainly
not going to take it out from the library, only geeks in specs go
there.
2008/5/15 Nathan Hondros <[log in to unmask]>:
> I can't claim to be a purist or a pervert, so I must be utterly
> uninteresting. And I despise party games.
>
> On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 2:01 PM, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> And poets lose faith in all their Imaginary Friends.
>>
>> You get Simon Armitage:
>>
>> 'Firstly, bookish people imagine themselves as purists, but are
>> actually perverts, belonging to a deviant culture'
>>
>> (So that explains Larkin's private library)
>>
>> 'Poetry continually runs the risk of being unexciting because of its
>> continual attempts to appeal to unexciting people - people who enjoy
>> reading - an essentially passive, silent and solitary activity'
>>
>> From 'Re-Writing the Good Book' reprinted 'Strong Words', Bloodaxe, 2000.
>>
>> The essay begins with an imaginary game with Christmas cards and you
>> get party tricks as a governing metaphor in some of Armitage's poems.
>> So you have the poet here as someone who wants to have lots of friends
>> at Poly.
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Dave
>>
>> --
>> David Bircumshaw
>> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
>> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
>> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
>> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>>
>
>
>
> --
> [log in to unmask]" target="_blank">http:[log in to unmask]
>
--
David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
|