> 4) One thing (some) avant-garde poetry has been very good at, I'd suggest, is
> in looking at the conditions and costs of politics (in all these instances) as
> something unstable, unsettled, slippery and often delusive. To bludgeon all of
> that into a mash with the club of "efficacy" doesnšt strike me as terribly
> useful.
>
> Again, I agree. Poetry canšt be politically effective in the short-term. As
> Tim Allen said in another thread on this topic, any poetic influence can only
> be measured over the long-term. I donšt think Archameau would say it canšt be.
> I think hešs simply saying what you and I are saying, that poetic influence is
> not an immediate thing.
fwiw...that's really not at all what I was saying. This question or point
about "effectiveness" is either crashingly banal ---
PAXMAN: Tell me, Prime Minister, how have your planned public sector cuts
been shaped by your reading of J.H.Prynne?
CAMERON: Well, "Unanswering Rational Shore" did give me pause, but in the
end I find Prynne's recent work rather a tough nut to crack, though I do
like the one about the weasels.
--- or wielded in such a way as to obscure more interesting questions (such
as those raised by Alison and Peter. Or: What kinds of transactions take
place between text and reader in an innovative work? How might these be
comprehended? Are they in any sense generative of a political imagination?
(a leading question, sure). Is carnivalizing a range of discourses
sufficient when late capital's technodada does it already? Or even more
specifically: Does Bruce Andrews' poetic assault on syntax and semantics
best achieve his declared aims? Has Prynne, as Wilkinson suggested, written
himself into a corner? Why is Douglas Oliver's ostensibly political work
less successful than his earlier writing?
....so on, so forth...
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