Tha's basically what Fred said in his earlier post in this thread & I agree
with it. It's what keeps me going at this point.
jd
On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 10:53 AM, Halvard Johnson <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> On that last point, Anny:
>
> "If you can't annoy somebody, what's
> the point in writing?"
> --Kingsley Amis
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ================
> [log in to unmask]
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/index.html>
> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ehalvard/vidalocabooks.html>
>
>
> On Jul 1, 2008, at 8:38 AM, Anny Ballardini wrote:
>
> Very interesting questions.
>> To the question: Why do you write, I heard the following answers (which
>> does
>> not mean I agree with them):
>> Out of passion; Because poetry is breath for me; To find answers, to give
>> a
>> perspective to events and facts that goes beyond what is; To make people
>> mad, ....
>>
>> have a great day, Anny
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 3:24 PM, Joseph Duemer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> "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
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Anny Ballardini
>> http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
>> http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
>> http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
>> I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
>> star!
>>
>
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
Weblog: sharpsand.net
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