Tim, needless to say I agree with you. I find that workshops tend to be run by
poetic dictators who are more concerned with peddling their own ideas of
what a poem is than trying to facilitate genuine curiosity in the people
they "teach". It is this didactical element that I find disturbing, and explains
why (as you say) workshops have had such a big influence on poetry in
Britain.
On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:41:47 +0100, Tim Allen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Hi Jeffrey,
>
>We do seem to be on parallel tracks re a lot of these things. I used
>to hammer on about the workshop influence too. I used to call it the
>Workshop School and I wrote in Terrible Work back in the 90's that the
>Workshop School had had the biggest and most lasting influence on
>poetry in Britain, far outstripping the Martian thing that arose at
>the same time, in the 80's. It was the values of the workshop school,
>basically a form of bastardised bourgeois personalism grafted onto
>post-Movement poetics, that lead directly to the explosion of Domestic
>Realism in the 90's. In Glastonbury in 1995 I held an anti-workshop
>workshop called Terrible Workshop - 4 people turned up, my mates and
>Sean Bonney, so we forgot about the silly thing and just had a good
>time chatting.
>
>Tim A.
>
>On 9 Aug 2009, at 14:18, Jeffrey Side wrote:
>
>> Workshops are a strange phenomenon in poetry composition. One wonders
>> how Blake ever managed without them! They function mainly as a
>> networking
>> tool for poets who like to appear busy, or who are insecure about
>> thier
>> practice. Of course, they should exist, but only in the same way as
>> pottery
>> classes do. Both can be pleasurable for a few hours. Sorry to sound so
>> cynical.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 9 Aug 2009 12:58:01 +0100, David Bircumshaw
>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks for this, Jeffrey, the observations on workshops made me
>>> smile.
>>>
>>> 2009/7/31 Jeffrey Side <[log in to unmask]>
>>>
>>>> Found a good article called 'POETRY SCENE: CURRENT DIFFICULTIES'
>>>>
>>>> http://www.textetc.com/modernist/current-difficulties.html
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> David Bircumshaw
>>> "A window./Big enough to hold screams/
>>> You say are poems" - DMeltzer
>>> 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
>>>
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