Terrible. But far worse here. We'll see how Obama's health care
package works. It's a miracle that he got anything at all.
At 06:38 PM 3/31/2010, you wrote:
>How interesting Mark: I didn't realise that the world the Opie's describe
>crossed the Atlantic outside areas that can be thought of as traditionally
>British influenced. I wonder how well it survives now with international
>consumer culture?
>I get close to tears often here as I see the day by day dismantling of what
>the Atlee government did, a destruction actively sought by many in the
>current Labour party: while Obama tries to introduce health reform in the US
>here local health trusts are being forced to put the running of a fixed
>proportion of GP's surgeries out to tender, which auctions are invariably
>being awarded to US health care firms, which immediately begin to
>cherry-pick patients and treatments; and as the homeless increase a system
>of 'bidding' is being piloted for council and social housing properties,
>wherein prospective 'customers' have to 'sell' their 'worthiness' for
>housing.
>
>On 31 March 2010 21:43, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > I think as with anyone it all forms a mind.
> >
> > I'm profoundly interested in human behavior and in the transmission of
> > culture (small c). That there has been a separate child culture in most
> > places and most times, transmitted from child to child and
> largely forgotten
> > by those same children as adults, is pretty amazing. In the case of the
> > Opies' studies, it was especially interesting to me how much of what had
> > been a British urban children's culture made its way into my mostly Eastern
> > European and Italian neighborhood.
> >
> > I'm one chapter away from finishing the London. Earlier today on the subway
> > I almost burst into tears while reading it. What he describes in 1902 was
> > pretty much the state of things from the beginning of the
> eighteenth century
> > until reforms early in the twentieth century and finally the Labour govt of
> > 1944-48. There should be an altar to Clement Attlee on every
> streetcorner in
> > Britain. It was also true of New York in the same period, the New York my
> > family migrated to. And it remains the state of much of the world's
> > population, including the homeless sleeping on the streets of New York.
> >
> > How can these awarenesses not have an effect on one's writing?
> >
> >
> > At 04:16 PM 3/31/2010, you wrote:
> >
> >> People of the Abyss - yes!
> >> give us a report on yr reading, Mark.
> >> That and John Barleycorn stay in my mind and call me one day to reread.
> >>
> >> Max
> >>
> >> As for the Left Forum, I presume you haven't been attending it.
> >>
> >> And where did the Opies' books lead you...?
> >>
> >> (None of which is strictly poetryetc stuff, but...)
> >>
> >> Quoting Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>:
> >>
> >> > If by choice you mean somehow piques your interest, sure. Nobody
> >> > forces me to open a given book. But it's not just poetry in the
> >> > curriculum. For instance, I'm reading an early book of Jack London's,
> >> > The People of the Abyss, which I'd never heard of, because Trevor
> >> > Joyce is going out with a sociologist who was presenting at The Left
> >> > Forum and we arranged to meet in the book section there, where it
> >> > caught my eye. Or the Opies' wonderful series of books on the
> >> > folklore of childhood, which were lying around the house of a
> >> > folklorist friend of mine who said "worth reading." etc. Out of all
> >> > of which one improvises a world thus far.
> >> >
> >> > This is very different from reading within a specialization and
> >> > forming one's poetic therefrom.
> >> >
> >> > Best,
> >> >
> >> > Mark
> >> >
> >> > At 11:33 AM 3/31/2010, you wrote:
> >> > >But for the writer, Mark, 'accidental on purpose'?
> >> > >
> >> > >I mean, along the way, many of those 'serendipitous readings' come
> >> > >about by choice. I found a copy of Olson's The Maximus Poems (Jargon
> >> > >24) in a small bookstore in Halifax, say, & the dedication to 'the
> >> > >figure of outside' led me to Creeley? Etc? Which is partly true,
> >> > >although, of course, I & my writing friends had already 'found' The
> >> > >New American Poetry, but that lucky 'find' was a kind of choice, it
> >> > >rather than some of the other anthologies around at the time, which
> >> > >didnt offer the same important goods.
> >> > >
> >> > >Doug
> >> > >On 31-Mar-10, at 8:16 AM, Mark Weiss wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > >>Armand Schwerner called it the "accidental curriculum."
> >> > >
> >> > >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
> >> > >
> >> > > The secret
> >> > >
> >> > >which got lost neither hides
> >> > >nor reveals itself, it shows forth
> >> > >
> >> > >tokens.
> >> > >
> >> > > Charles Olson
> >> >
> >> > Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University
> >> > of California Press).
> >> > http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
> >> >
> >> > "Not since the 1982 publication of Paul Auster's Random House Book of
> >> > Twentieth Century French Poetry has a bilingual anthology so
> >> > effectively broadened the sense of poetic terrain outside the United
> >> > States and also created a superb collection of foreign poems in
> >> > English. There is nothing else like it." John Palattella in The
> >> > Nation
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> This email was sent from Netspace Webmail: http://www.netspace.net.au
> >>
> >
> > Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University of
> > California Press).
> > http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
> >
> > "Not since the 1982 publication of Paul Auster's Random House Book of
> > Twentieth Century French Poetry has a bilingual anthology so effectively
> > broadened the sense of poetic terrain outside the United States and also
> > created a superb collection of foreign poems in English. There is nothing
> > else like it." John Palattella in The Nation
> >
>
>
>
>--
>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
>Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
>twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
>blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University
of California Press).
http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
"Not since the 1982 publication of Paul Auster's Random House Book of
Twentieth Century French Poetry has a bilingual anthology so
effectively broadened the sense of poetic terrain outside the United
States and also created a superb collection of foreign poems in
English. There is nothing else like it." John Palattella in The
Nation
|