A little bit, Tim, but it was a bit tongue-in-cheek, I couldn't help
responding to the seemingly po-faced presentation of Kent's jokes (I
actually thought of re-writing the piece substituting my own or even better
a fictional name for Kent's). I've long been uneasy about some aspects of
things from the States (after all, the more time goes by, the more the huge
right-wing element in much US poetry of the first part of the century prior
to Vietnam becomes clear) but I'm also mindful of just how bad things are
becoming over here: there was a neat link I noticed in The Guardian this
weekend where the excerpt from the NY Review mentioned Elizabeth Bishop (so
much admired here) and her support for the generals in Brazil.
As you say, the notion of the radical in the US is overridingly aesthetic,
it allows a certain split personality to the literary culture, and a
disembodiment of language.
Anyhow, I hope things go well for Kate Clanchy and her cleaning lady
(Guardian again)
2009/9/27 Tim Allen <[log in to unmask]>
> Dave, regarding the below and another of your mentions of 'bourgeois'
> writers a few weeks back. Is this a similar take to my reading and
> interpretation of some of the newer poetry? Some time back, regarding some
> of the work coming out of America, I was struck by the overriding aesthetic
> notion of the radical and a distancing of the work from real sociological
> radicalism that should always lay at the root of innovation. To my mind that
> tendency has increased enormously over the past 10 years. It has been helped
> along by the increasing symbiotic relationship between avant poetry and
> academia and a certain notion of the postmodern that depoliticized so much
> activity. Young poets, very well educated and professionally orientated meet
> aging poets who have grown more cynical and tired - a perfect match with
> which to play with bourgeois values in the safety of the page, or computer
> screen etc.
>
> Cheers
> Tim A.
>
>
> On 27 Sep 2009, at 05:57, David Bircumshaw wrote:
>
> My, Kent's come on. I used to know him before he became a famous bourgeois
>> writer,
>>
>
--
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
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