I'm not sure the Movement thing's that relevant to the poem, nor to Alison's
point, though that's not for me to say. Alison's reading of the poem made
sense to me and I also sensed something similar in the responses to it - the
idea that the domestic necessarily means bourgeois, and that a poem whose
imagery isn't hard to understand and whose language is far from taxing is
therefore something to be looked down on. I don't mean every objection to
the poem follows these contours. But whatever the reasons for the hostility,
a poem written 20 years ago that can still generate heated discussion isn't
perhaps such a "poor" thing. I'm inclined to feel far more sympathy for some
of my own.
Jamie
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 10:20 PM
Subject: Re: Response to my criticisms of Armitage's poetry
>> Something bothers me in this conversation: a snobbery, perhaps?
>> "Prosaic" needn't be a term of abuse. Rilke can be prosaic. An a
>> priori contempt for the domestic. I'm not sure precisely why this
>> particular poem has attracted such ire.
>>
>> xA
>
> Might be something generational, Alison. Jamie put his finger on it when
> he said I was prejudiced against the Movement, but that was sort of the
> King Thing in England, and even to a degree in Scotland, when I began
> writing in the sixties, and it was so bloody *constraining, you weren't
> supposed to do anything at all outside these tight closeted boundaries,
> the Plain Man's Lyric. (OK, so I exaggerate a bit.)
>
> And it was something good at two removes -- Hardy was a genius, and when
> Larkin picked up from him, he wrote good poems on occasion, but by the
> time you get to the sixties Movement poets channeling Larkin ...
> Geeuzabreak.
>
> Mind you, the Birk is a few years younger than me, so he doesn't have that
> excuse. <g>
>
> Robin
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