Hi, Jamie.

You're right that I'm prejudiced against the Moment as a whole (and I'd 
argue a case for this prejudice if put to it) but that was what the Armitage 
poem reminded me of, so it was a useful shorthand.

I should say that I read the poem and wrote my comments before looking 
carefully at what you yourself said (it was the way I was trained, always 
read the text before you read the critics) and coming back to them 
afterwards, I'd want to take into account your points about the sibilant 
echoes, and the coherency of the way in which the imagery develops.

Also whether or not the line endings pay their way -- my immediate thought 
was that they were imposed *on a more regular structure, as a gesture 
towards radical chic.  But that's maybe unfair, and something I perhaps 
should reconsider.

Trouble is, I don't really want to go back to the poem again and read it 
more carefully.  I just didn't find myself engaged enough the first time 
through to bother.  I think the division in response that's coming  out is 
to do with something pretty fundamental, a response to the nature of imagery 
or something (sorry to be so sloppy and vague) and I doubt if it would be 
resolved even if I re-read the poem yet once more.   I suspect I'd simply 
harden my attitude and argue more grimly.

As to the Porter comparison -- yes, I agree that it's setting a high 
standard, and how many poems, or even poets, could stand beside it.  (For 
me, _Cost of Seriousness_ is easily Porter's best book, followed by _English 
Subtitles_.)  But again, given the situation presented in the poem, "tender 
domestic [possible] loss" (yuck!  but I can't think of how to word this more 
sensibly), it was what sprang to my mind.

Also, I was hoping someone could tell me where exactly, "Finally we are 
condemned by our lack of talent," occurs in _Cost of Seriousness_.  Try as I 
might, I just can't seem to find it any more, and I'm beginning to think I 
must have made the line up.

Oh, one last point:

> You know as I do well as I do that hundreds of examples of this could be 
> found in "mainstream" poetry.

Sure, but it was something else I was picking up on, as I remember my 
reactions, not just enjambement.  When radical line breaks are used across a 
phrase boundary, in say the work of David Black, there's always a purpose to 
it, that I couldn't at the time intuit in the Armitage text.  But I won't 
push the point as I can't be bothered to go back and pin down just precisely 
what was getting up my nose around this particular aspect of the poem.

Best,

Robin


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jamie McKendrick" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 3:09 PM
Subject: Re: Response to my criticisms of Armitage's poetry


> Robin,
>  I don't want to drag this out, but I had a few thoughts about your mail 
> on the poem.
> You're reminded of the Movement. Is that always such a bad thing? Still, 
> for me, it doesn't much resemble any particular Movement poet, though I 
> think you may have a point that the register is "deliberately limited" 
> (not necessarily a bad thing either), but I'd call it subdued rather than 
> "prosaic".
>   I'm not convinced the kettle line "hovers just on the edge of cliche" - 
> I've already said why I think it sets up a series of images which are 
> essential.
> Your next point:
>>(but what's up with those breaks across line endings and between the 
>>two-line sections?  I couldn't see the point, other than a mild gesture 
>>towards avant-guardism)
> I see no such gesture and can't at all work out why run-ons over line and 
> stanza should be considered a preserve of the avant-garde. You know as I 
> do well as I do that hundreds of examples of this could be found in 
> "mainstream" poetry. Whether they work or not is the only point of 
> interest. Here I think the first stanza run-on: there are signs// of 
> someone having left" is ok, making the space stand for an absence. The 
> second stanza run-on is more interesting: "the clockwork// contractions of 
> the paraffin heater" - with the stalled alliteration giving emphasis to 
> "contractions" - a word associated with pregnancy, which then leaves a 
> disturbing suggestion, how can I put it, that the couple's intimate life 
> is on hold, though their appliances are vicariously heated and animated. 
> I'm stating this crudely, but I think the poem allows these suggestions to 
> surface. The other stanza run-on maintains the 'k' sound - "For weeks now 
> we have come and gone, woken// in acres of empty bedding..." - again the 
> space of the line ending and the stanza break gives a sense of uninhabited 
> space and emptiness, with the deliberate excess of "acres".
>    I think that's about all I have to say on the poem - maybe this will 
> seem to you and to Mark, whose post I've just read, "contrived for its own 
> sake" and, somehow, therefore akin to basket-weaving. I do think the poet 
> "needed" to write it, to use Mark's distinction (though "Reason not the 
> need") and that it's effective in its own way.
>   One afterthought about your post, Robin, concerns your use of Peter 
> Porter's The Cost of Seriousness to deliver a withering stroke:
>>Was it Peter Porter who said, "Finally we are condemned by our lack of 
>>talent"?  If you put this poem beside Porter's poems in _The Cost of 
>>Seriousness_ (and there is an overlap of concerns between the two) then 
>>this is simply not worth bothering with.
> It's a long time since I read this book, written when Porter was in his 
> fifties. But the elegies to his wife in it don't at all seem evidence of 
> "an overlap of concerns between the two" (no more really than in the Ward 
> song Jeff has sent). It just seems odd to use this whole book, one of 
> Porter's best, to bash a single early Armitage poem with. Anyway you've 
> reached your conclusion that "this is simply not worth bothering with" so 
> I doubt that resolve will be much dented by anything I've said. The only 
> point of agreement I have with your post is your final concession that 
> there's a rhythmic force to the poem. I think this poem and much of the 
> rest of his work bears this out.
> Jamie
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 2:15 AM
> Subject: Re: Response to my criticisms of Armitage's poetry
>
>
>>> Robin, 'scuse my last email - written before I'd read yours below, and 
>>> only in response to your earlier one.
>>> Jamie
>>
>> Finally some comments on the Armitage poem, Jamie.
>>
>> First point (and yes, I *am a pedant, and proud of it, Alison <g>), let's 
>> reattach the title to the poem, as it would seem to be relevant.  "Night 
>> Shift".
>>
>> So we have a context, but ...
>>
>>        Once again I have missed you by moments
>>
>> OK, competant rhythm, but choice of a deliberately limited and prosaic 
>> register.  What does this remind me of?  Oh, yes, Movement poetry.  (This 
>> poem could have been written any time since the fifties, and was written 
>> much more frequently then.)
>>
>> Followed by:
>>
>>        steam hugs the rim of the just-boiled kettle
>>
>> To my ear, that hovers just on the edge of cliche.
>>
>> The rest of the poem is much the same -- not particularly bad, not 
>> particularly good (but what's up with those breaks across line endings 
>> and between the two-line sections?  I couldn't see the point, other than 
>> a mild gesture towards avant-guardism).
>>
>> But it's the last two lines that confirm my opinion of what's gone 
>> before --  "the air, still hung with spores of your hairspray" is for me 
>> easily the best line in the poem, but it's followed by, "body-heat stowed 
>> in the crumpled duvet," which lapses back into triteness.
>>
>> So not, finally, something that would particularly want to make me seek 
>> out more of Armitage's poems.  Was it Peter Porter who said, "Finally we 
>> are condemned by our lack of talent"?  If you put this poem beside 
>> Porter's poems in _The Cost of Seriousness_ (and there is an overlap of 
>> concerns between the two) then this is simply not worth bothering with.
>>
>> Against that, the strongest side of the poem is the rhythms it uses --  
>> Armitage is actually rather good there.  Or at least competant.  But what 
>> a waste, to link a decent ear for rhythm with lame and insufficient 
>> imagery and language.
>>
>> My two cents' worth.
>>
>> Robin
>