No Alison,
I am simply saying that the READING and critical response to a poem is  
going to be conditioned - to some degree or other - by such things as  
the iffy area where poetics meets literary power politics. I honestly  
don't see a way out of this.
Don't take too much notice of the word 'schools' - it was Kit's word,  
not mine, and I think we both know what she means by it.
And I do not 'grudge' Heaney's popular success, as you have inferred.  
In fact I haven't made any such comment at all. I think I made it  
quite plain where I stand in my opinion of Heaney and 'grudge' never  
came into it. I am not speaking for others though.

Cheers
Tim

On 11 Apr 2009, at 00:09, Alison Croggon wrote:

> Tim - are you really saying that the writing of poetry is entirely
> conditioned by which school or group one supposedly belongs to? And
> that a state of "innocence" (?) is not possible? Unless you mean that
> it's impossible to discuss poetry without tracing literary genealogies
> or ideas, which is a little different to discussing contemporary
> social power relationships. I personally don't and have never given a
> rat's arse about "schools", since on close inspection they generally
> seem singularly useless as descriptive groupings, and I do think
> individual poets do - if they're interested in poetry at all - retain
> a certain innocence, a certain incorrigible belief in poetry itself,
> aside from the so-called "world" it inhabits as industrial practice.
> Otherwise, why bother? You might as well be working in an office,
> vying for the eye of the various corporate bosses.
>
> For my part, I think Heaney has his moments (I admire Glanmore
> Sonnets, for example). I remember years ago Peter R supplied the
> adjective "senatorial", which strikes me as an accurate description of
> a tone which I personally find less than exciting. Yes, Heaney's a
> popular poet. His poems can mean something to people who don't
> necessarily read a lot of poetry. Why grudge that? I'm just puzzled
> that he generates such spleen.
>
> xA
>
> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Tim Allen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Hi Kit,
>>
>> Part of the problem here is that if you start with the poems you  
>> have to
>> kind of pretend that all the other stuff about 'schools and groups  
>> and
>> influence and power-politics' doesn't exist, as if you were coming  
>> to the
>> things in a state of innocence, which of course we're not. In my  
>> experience
>> the pretense cannot deal with the pressure - you end up pulling the  
>> poems
>> apart but in a vacuum, without anything to back up your opinions.
>>
>> I like your description of the 'swotty sensibility' - that tone  
>> that runs
>> through his work is a real turn-off for me, true. There are plenty of
>> postmod writers too who have a 'swotty sensibility', but they don't  
>> have
>> that suffocating sense of possessing earthy wisdom, something else  
>> that rubs
>> me up the wrong way. Your comment about him being offputting for  
>> people
>> under a pensionable age and those over who came out of the 60's is  
>> very
>> funny.
>>
>> Happy Easter
>>
>> Tim A.
>>
>> On 10 Apr 2009, at 10:34, Kit Fryatt wrote:
>>
>>> Fair enough, if you're just not interested.  And I can see that the
>>> Establishment-logroll-Festschrifty side of Heaney is a powerful
>>> disincentive
>>> to interest.  & even when he's not writing in offeeshal mode he  
>>> can be
>>> "literary" in a sort of earnest 11+, matriculatory way that is  
>>> offputting
>>> and alien to a) people under pensionable age b) people over that  
>>> age who
>>> to
>>> some extent bought into the complex of thought and general stuff we
>>> sometimes vaguely refer to as "the 60s" c) so just about everyone,  
>>> really.
>>> I think Heaney's fans generally ignore this stuff, but it occurs in
>>> worrying
>>> volume from _Field Work_ on.  Is this sort of swotty sensibility  
>>> what
>>> people
>>> mean when they call Heaney a Georgian, I wonder?  Because the poetry
>>> isn't;
>>> but there is something sort of dominie about the intelligence  
>>> behind the
>>> worst of it.
>>>
>>> But the thing that struck me and dismayed me about the Jacket  
>>> debate was
>>> just how little poetry got discussed.  It was all schools and  
>>> groups and
>>> influence and power-politics.  I'm not saying those things don't  
>>> matter,
>>> or
>>> that poetry takes place somehow transcendentally above or apart  
>>> from them,
>>> but if you want to make a point about a poet, it seems to me the  
>>> poems are
>>> the best place to start, better even (especially) than interview  
>>> material.
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Editor, Masthead:  http://www.masthead.net.au
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com