Desmond
Armitage is A Small Business, I don't buy his products because I find they
fall apart after one wash. (I've tried some of them from one of those places
that are on the way out, a what do you call it, a p-p-public library, where
they have books and old stuff like)
2009/9/26 Desmond Swords <[log in to unmask]>
> I don't think Armo is condescending when he talks of writing for the
> 'common' reader, because he merely means the non-academic poetry buff who
> like it simple simon said a pie man: can fan do not ban armitage just
> because flarf is not his smarmatige's bag, daddio.
>
> Simon has done a huge amount inspiring the next generation of
> demotic-highblown hybrid poets who are in the Larkin vein of using the word
> fuck, with words like hierarchy, status, coterie, clique, ritardando,
> semi-classical hocus pocus, a whiff of the comedian and - in all fairness,
> a
> great rendering of the Green Knight into readable contemporary vernacular.
>
> He has that northern ordinariness about him, and though his gear aint
> everyone's cuppa, he does appeal to the common audience. Now, some might
> say
> he is dumbing down the noble craft, whilst others will say he is inspiring
> the kids to have a go at beleiving poetry is not something they need be
> excluded from: not the reserve of dry abstruse crusty old fogies in the oxo
> axis, writing like Veronica Forrest Thomson, for example: who has been this
> weeks poet on the Guardian books blog poem of the week, number 104 in the
> Poem of the Week Series curated by MC Rumens: a well known post-modern
> crazee who reckons she's gonna come here and fill you all in.
>
> Carol and i are very close online colleagues, with a very healthy,
> respectful and virtually working relationship, which has blossomed over the
> two years i have been steering her away from the lyric and into crazees
> such
> as Veronica Forrest Thomson. I have just set up a facebook account, and am
> looking to start a fan club for me and Carol, as a duo available for
> instructing our fellow poetry professors, on the most efficient ways of
> minimising sales to the specialist readerships one can develop as a bore
> with a bitta class, who can talk the walk and whatnot, for the very
> reasonable price of just admitting it: you are a fan of me and carol and
> really, Armitage is your god.
>
--
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
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
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