"We' sustain it, Stephen & Joe, in so many different ways. I really
dont know. I think we are aware that many readers of poetry today are
other poets, & that's okay I guess.
A reader, that's all I desire, one. I'm fairly lucky, in that I've
found more than that; so have most f us, I hazard. Because we dont
write just for ourselves alone, we do want to communicate, something
or other?
And as a reader, I seek that something, that little frisson that cuts
into my psyche & stays. And I've been lucky enough to find some of
that among my contemporaries as well as the great past masters.
So, t sustain, well, there's that inability to not write, sometimes, &
there's that desire, & something other as well, which I cant name...
But even in the face of general disinterest, on we go, & we do dont we?
Doug
On 1-Jul-08, at 7:24 AM, Joseph Duemer 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
>
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
It's the first lesson, loss.
Who hasn't tried to learn it
at the hands of wind or thieves?
Jan Zwicky
|