Now that I've seen the exact quotes Motion uses, I, too, think he is out
of order. He could have at least changed them a bit. But then, he is an
empiricist poet, and all they can do is record things, like a camera--or in
this case, like a photocopier.
On Mon, 9 Nov 2009 17:43:50 -0000, Sally Evans
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>I think he 's way out of order. There's an interesting discussion of this
on
>my facebook page for those who are on there...
>Sally Evans
>http://www.desktopsallye.com
>http://www.poetryscotland.co.uk
>tel UK 01877 339449
>sallyevanz on twitter, facebook and skype
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>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 5:05 PM
>Subject: Re: motion's borrowing
>
>
>Have to say that Motion certainly did admit all, & say what he was
>about. So, the only question is, How good is the result?
>
>It's 'found,' all right, but as a collage, as some kind of modernist
>'take', in which the 'cinematic' cutting actually does something
>extra, beyond what the original quotes did in Shephard's book? To me
>it doesn't seem like Motion added much...
>
>Doug
>On 9-Nov-09, at 12:14 AM, Max Richards wrote:
>
>> An Equal Voice
>> In this 'found poem' for Remembrance Day, Andrew Motion stitches
together
>> the
>> words of several generations of shellshocked soldiers from the first
>> world war
>> to the present
>>
>> Andrew Motion
>> guardian.co.uk, Saturday 7 November 2009
>>
>> Doctors, historians and other experts have documented the effects
of
>> shellshock
>> – thanks to them, we know that the term covers a multitude of
ailments,
>> and is
>> the result of far more than just shells going off. But, as Ben
Shephard
>> wrote in
>> his history of medical psychiatry, the people who have suffered
from it
>> have
>> often been too ill to speak. They have been left out of the record. I
>> wanted to
>> hear from them. This is a "found" poem, a stitching together of the
>> voices of
>> shellshocked people. Their words have been taken from a variety of
>> sources, from
>> the first world war to the present, and are presented in the poem in
>> roughly
>> chronological order. There's a fragment of Siegfried Sassoon in
there,
>> but most
>> are from unknown soldiers. Together, they give a sense of moving
through
>> time to
>> establish what is horribly recurrent about this affliction. It is a
poem
>> by
>> them, orchestrated by me.
>
>Douglas Barbour
>[log in to unmask]
>
>http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
>
>Latest books:
>Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
>http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
>Wednesdays'
>http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-
aboveground-press_10.html
>
>Good taste is as tiring as good company.
>
>Francis Picabia
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