I doubt very much if this programme would have happened if the
presenter had not been the writer of Billy Eliot. It is that which
gave the opening.
And I agree with John that the whole thing seemed very much to be
Pickard's take.
Amusing how, after an hour of making a special case for the North, the
presenter said it wasn't doing that. As far as innovative poetry
itself is concerned that was never really the issue, of course, but
this 'north' thing did have a wider importance for what followed in
the mainstream with the 'Northern School' etc, most of whom had no
time for Bunting, despised poets like Pickard - or, worse, patronized
them - and thought MacSweeney was a joke. For someone like Neil Astley
the fact that Bunting and MacSweeney came from the area was enough to
laud them, without taking the slightest notice of their poetics etc.
and becoming one of those most active in the processes that made
things like the Morden Tower readings and the ethos behind them a
thing of the past.
I would like to know the reasons for Peter's put-down though. My
knowledge of the Sparty Lea 'punch-up' is purely anecdotal and
contradictory. I know that Barry was not amiss to - how shall we put
it - a little exaggeration - and his capacity for self mythologizing
was well-known - something which in my opinion spoilt his later work.
Tim A.
On 4 Mar 2009, at 13:16, John Muckle wrote:
> Well. perhaps Britain is a more class divided society than America
> (although
> I don't believe this.) I think it's as well to remember that we're
> talking
> about forty five odd years ago, when not so many people went to
> college
> anyway, and an enterprise that was from the industrial North East. Tom
> Pickard's myth-making (I recognised the whole thing as being based
> on his
> point of view) seemed fair-enough to me, perfectly understandable.
> If I'd
> been there when Bunting was writing Briggflatts I'd be weaving a
> pretty tale
> about it too.
>
> Sorry Peter Riley didn't enjoy - maybe it was the jocular account of
> the
> celebrated punch-up at Sparty Lea.
>
> Finally, it's pretty unusual to hear something like this in the
> British
> media, which is why I was surprised no-one had flagged it up. The
> programme
> was about a lost moment and some spirited beginnings - the
> descendents are
> mostly thoroughly institutionalised now.
>
> all best
>
> John
|