I rather like that hierarchies are unstable. It means that value isn't
assigned by magisterial authority but argued more fiercely, and I
can't but think of that as a positive thing. Why should matters of
culture be stable and mutually accepted? Sounds like a kind of
death...

Stephen, to explain a little: until recently my three different
writing lives were practically hermetically sealed from each other,
and each still basically has wholly different readerships with wholly
different expectations. I could hardly expect (or desire) the same
responses to my poems as I get to my novels, and criticism is a
different activity altogether; why should I look for the same thing
from any of them? They make totally different demands on different
readers... It's a wholly personal thing, of course, but poetry for me
is and always has been essentially a private process. I like talking
and arguing about it, and have enjoyed various things I've done in
relation to it, and if someone else values a poem in some way, that's
a bonus. But those things really have little or nothing to do with why
I want - or, as the case may be, don't want - to write it. Which is
basically my business and not entirely understood by me. By which I
mean, I would write poetry even if nobody read it, but I wouldn't
write criticism or novels if there were no readers.

I figure that if you want to make money or to have a public voice,
poetry is probably not the best way of going about it, since it
probably wouldn't work, given the cultural place of poetry these days,
or if it did work, it would most likely (although not necessarily) be
at the price of poetry. Well, look at the recent unedifying spectacle
at Oxford... I'd rather not burden poems with those expectations, and
if it means one's readers are few, well, I don't think that matters so
much, so long as that relationship is somehow alive and vital. But
this, as I said, is purely personal. Publishers like Chris
Hamilton-Emery have a different idea, and quite rightly, otherwise
they would never sell any books. And I think that's fine, too.

xA




On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 6:06 PM, Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
> I appreciate what Alison put into the mix here - tho I find confusing the willingness to go with different kinds of responses to the genres of writing( poetry versus fantasy versus theater).  Alison, I suspect many of us would crave for our poems the attention you get from your fans in the way they go over your sentences, etc.  (When my poems are discussed in classes, wrong headed or not, I appreciate hearing the different kinds of attention and often learn from it).    On the other hand, Pound,good Mandarin,  was happy in the Cantos to settle for a small, critically bright. educated audience and never expected or wanted more.
>
> Jumping out here, I'd say we are in a weird period/ space where the language(s) are suddenly not solidly rooted in any space. Print on Demand, Online publication, the death of most literary magazines, etc., etc. has shaken things up in which practically anything goes and stops at the same time! The struggle to find how to put things back on some kind of stable and mutually accepted playing field seems to be the art of the present!
> My sense, at least in my local backyard, poets are struggling and working to figure that out.
>
> Stephen
> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/ V
>
>
> --- On Wed, 6/3/09, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: "Previously unpublished"
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Wednesday, June 3, 2009, 12:26 AM
>
> Stephen wrote: >As much as I think right now the practice of poetry has
> become a mix of saturation and disconnect by us makers of the stuff.<
> I can't
>  parse this.
>
>
> 2009/6/2 Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]>
>
>> Ah, yes, Martin. EKB is a West Indian that I read and very much liked. I
>> think he is no longer with us, as well!!  Walcott I have read little because
>> there was not much impulse to read more. An ambitious emulative "iam pentam"
>> colonial subject, methought.   Which probably fit the officially desired
>> Oxford "Professor" template, I suspect.
>> No, I have been around a lot of, in my opinion, great poetry written by
>> 'ungreat' people who are of and have connected across various classes. As
>> much as I think right now the practice of poetry has become a mix of
>> saturation and disconnect by us makers of the stuff. As much as I try also
>> to remain connected and connect, etc.
>> And I am blessed to
>  live in a City and region where a ton of poets and
>> poetry stuff happens - readings, talks, etc.
>>
>> Stephen V
>> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --- On Tue, 6/2/09, Martin Walker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> From: Martin Walker <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: "Previously unpublished"
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009, 2:13 AM
>>
>> Bra(i)thwaite, Stephen? Methinks you got your West Indians mixed up ;-).
>> Edward Kamau B. is as you say not so well known, but in the poetry world
>> Derek Walcott has
>  been much read and fêted. And has poetry ever - at least
>> since bardic times - been much more than a diversion of the clerisy &
>> purveyors of high-class entertainment to the ruling caste, he asked
>> wickedly?
>> mj
>> Du siehst mein Sohn, zum Raum wird hier die Zeit. - Gurnemanz
>>   ----- Original Message -----
>>   From: Stephen Vincent
>>   To: [log in to unmask]
>>   Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 3:06 AM
>>   Subject: Re: "Previously unpublished"
>>
>>
>>   I been thinking - and maybe others have, as well - that a poem does not
>> exist in any of the public spheres (online, print, etc.) until it 'breeds' a
>> review and/or critical response in the eye/ear in a similar or
>  entirely
>> separate public channel (online,print, etc.) And something continues to grow
>> from there.
>>
>>   I am thinking that most poetry, no matter how well or diligently written
>> has become absolutely frivolous. Frivolous because it has no visible, or
>> useful function in the culture(s). It's just dead on arrival! The mechanisms
>> for making it so appear entirely devoid of vitality.
>>   At best Hermes is talking to Hermes.
>>
>>   Until such public means (call and response) are constructed (again), no
>> matter our skills and muse fidelities, in terms of any longer being a big
>> public animal, we be sweeping salt. (i.e., there is much work to be done,
>> and why the weekly poetry snap here can be and is valuable).
>>
>>   Whatever his graces, flaws, etc. I suspect Padel was able for a bit to
>> play her
>  ruse on Braithwaite and make it persuasive was because not many in
>> this world had read his poetry. Where issues of sexual harassment are - and
>> rightly so - required literacy and training in multiple (academic,
>> corporate, etc.) environments. And consequently publicly persuasive and, for
>> a time, ruled this discussion
>>
>>   On this this joyous note!
>>
>>   Stephen V
>>   http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>>
>
>
>
> --
> David Bircumshaw
> "Nothing can be done in the face
> of ordinary unhappiness" - PP
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>



--
Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com