"How do we, as poets, sustain the/this vocation?"
Stephen, that, for me, was the most crucial part of your original post, and
in that post as well as in this follow-up you recognize a set of social
forces acting on or in relationship to the writing of poetry. On a cosmic
scale, of course, all our lives are ephemeral. We will die, the sun will
burn out, the universe collapse (or expand infinitely toward nothingness) &
in spite of this we cook meals, get married, take jobs, write poems, strive
for fame, etc. But to say that we write poems only to drop them into the
abyss seems sophomoric to me -- it's a shallow response. A related response
is to note the true fact that much (but not all) literary publishing depends
on various minor forms of corruption & so to hell with it. So those books
you're reviewing -- you're right -- will slide most likely into oblivion.
What keeps those writers writing? What is the direct payoff? How do they
continue to write with conviction? Isn't part of "sustaining" a literary
life having a system of publication & distribution that makes sense? That
is, isn't publication of some sort part of the way we sustain a writing
life? "Of some sort" then becomes the thing that needs defining. What sort?
jd
On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 1:13 PM, Robin Hamilton <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Interesting. Toward the end of my teaching career, my university
>> accepted my web publications as equal to my 'real'. page-based, ones.
>>
>
> How old are you, Doug, or in which country?
>
> For me, even hard-copy counted against me.
>
> "Do you find that writing poetry *interferes with your teaching, Dr.
> Hamilton?"
>
> Having been turned down for at least four jobs because I wrote poetry, it
> was hysterically funny to find myself stopped at the Efficiency Bar.
>
> {Not that the Suits could actujllly *do anything to me, as I'd already
> topped the salary limit.)
>
> If you write poetry in the UK, you don't just button your mouth but you
> sew your lips shut.
>
> Or it was once.
>
> {One of the killers in the UK was "peer reviewed publications". That meant
> poets and dramturges made common cause.
>
> Fuck all good it did, and it all went down te tank when the UK Academic
> Academic Review Exercise decided to exclude reviews.
>
> Do you *know how long it takes to write a decemt review if there are maybe
> three people in the ever-loving world who'd bother to read what you say?
> Same time it takes takes to write a (peer reviewed) article.
>
> Natch, the Lost Boys (good on then) promptly stopped writing revew articles
> ...
>
> End result is if you read an academic review today, you get what you you
> pay for -- if you pay monkeys, you get peanuts.
>
> Way it goes ...
>
> :-(
>
> R.
>
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
Weblog: sharpsand.net
|