I never go a bundle on political message poems, David, but am eager to find
one which manages true poeming whilst seeking to give such message. Duffy's
failed in several ways, of which the message's clarity would be one [as you
quite rightly note and explain, and which's difficult for USAmericans to
figure out unless they know the politics in the UK].
Would be lovely to keep dissecting the poem, as you clearly have done, but
really the bottom line's that EXCELLENT POETRY IS DAMNED DIFFICULT TO WRITE.
And she, amongst millions of other worthy folk, simply cannot manage it.
She has grown her work fairly quickly in the last few years, and I honestly
believe that actually no one COULD NOT write Excellent Poetry......but it
does happen rarely. When it happens, it is instantly known by the poet and
by the poets' readers/hearers. It happens with your poems continuously. It
happened with Yeats, tho I still believe that your work trumps his.
A nother of my mantras: If writing Excellent Poetry were easy, or even
hardlearned but learnable only, many of us would be doing it [and I truly
wish I were one of those doing it]. But, alas, there you have it.
My profoundest respect is for all of us who pursue poems, writing, reading,
saying, and nurturing. It is why I have come to respect UKers, and to feel
sad that USAmericans are relatively less hooked into poetry. I've much
gratitude to you and many others in the UK for your reverence for words,
your unshrieked but constant attention to the power, freedom, magnificence,
uplift, and durability of words.
One day p'raps a Laureate will be equal to the anointing. I rather think,
tho, that the Professor of Poetry at Oxford will come closer to that ideal,
and much sooner. And I wish that Cambridge would initiate a like Chair but
with a more transparent nomination, campaign, and election process as well
as electronic voting.
That's for the academic side of poemworld. As for the Other Side: That's
for you to herald, and for me to support strongly and
continuously---daunting work, but not at all impossible, and worth every
word-breath.
All best,
Judy now having ducked the much-wanted rain....
2009/6/13 David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
> The other thing, Judy, that distresses me is that Duffy's poem as a piece
> of
> +rhetoric+ is effective, all those links of discs and hiss and piss and
> politics (she misses out the word 'fix' though) - she's really rather like
> a
> contemporary Kipling (a poet she derides somewhat) and that if you do look
> for political content in it, well, the only politicians deplored
> (inferentially) are Labour, I don't know. It's supposed to be a 'passionate
> commentary on the corrosiveness of politics on politicians and the ruinous
> effect on idealism' but bugger me if I can find any of that in the poem. It
> does though suggest that politics will spoil your appearance on Desert
> Island Discs. (Ruth Padel got on that a while back, I wonder ...)
>
> 2009/6/13 Judy Prince <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > Reminds, me David, now having trashed your UK Laureate.....<g> ... I'm
> > ready
> > yes ready to read me poems in Leicester. I'll wager that a female
> > USAmerican could sequester some Leicesters, even sell a pamphlet or two.
> > And soom others may well wish to complement-read, if you know what/whom
> I
> > mean....
> > subtle and humble as always, Judy
> >
> > 2009/6/13 David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
> >
> > > H'm, Carol Ann Duffy's first poem as Laureate
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jun/12/politics-carol-ann-duffy-poem
> > > <
> >
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jun/12/politics-carol-ann-duffy-poem
> > > >and,
> > > I write in all sincerity, congratulations to the outgoing tenant on his
> > > knighthood, the verray parfait Sir Andrew, as well as to the previous
> > > Professor of Poetry at Oxford, good Sir Christopher Ricks.
> > >
> > > A Toast, please.
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > 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
> > >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> 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
>
|