About Murrary. Yes, he takes a stand for what you seem to be calling
the 'rural' (in Oz), but is a highly sophisticated writer. Has both
craft & technique, I guess we can say.
At a conference here recently, he was a bit of an outsider, as it was
in honour of George Oppen & the concept of numerousness, & so most of
the poets there, Canadian & USAmerican, were in the New American &
following mode; Les was something of an outsider, & seemed to take
that as a way of attending. All the other poets attended his reading,
he attended none of theirs.
Reading to what was essentially a new audience, as he had never been
to Edmonton before, & was welcomed by a large crowd of locals (many
writers there), he chose to read mostly newer poems, not too many of
what I think of as some of his finest work, from before 2000. SOme
rather good, but I was wishing he would choose some of my faves.
And he missed some terrific readings by such as Erin Mouré, Steve
McCaffery, Rachel Blau Duplessis, & younger Canadians, Adam Dickinson
& Andy Weaver.
Doug
On 22-Jun-09, at 10:54 PM, David Bircumshaw wrote:
> I think what Graves' was (unconsciously or not) restating is the old
> distinction between country understanding and town intelligence.
> It's not
> heard of so much in Britain these days as the cultural relationship
> between
> urbs and its farmlands has altered so much: in Hardy's youth there
> still was
> a distinctive rural peasantry and an oral tradition of ballad
> singing, not
> something you're likely to find in the dormitory villages of today.
> You will still see something of a distinctive rural ( and troubled
> by city
> slickers) in poets from some countries - Les Murray springs to mind,
> I don't
> mean to say Murray is a Bumpkin, he's a very sophisticated man, but
> there's
> a real distinction between him and, say, a Charles Bernstein.
Douglas Barbour
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David Helwig
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