On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 1:17 AM, Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Uche:
>
> Here my own experience tells me you are wrong. I have personally seen in
> many cases people picking up on Yeats, Hopkins, Keats, Whitman, etc. after
> exposure to poets and poetical performance I personally found
> cringe-worthy.
>
> Uche, I'm glad to hear that. I wasn't suggesting, btw, that there is
> only one way to do that. Of course there are many ways to skin a cat.
>
> I spend a lot of my time with young people. And if you think I am
> scornful about poetry like our Matt's, you should hear them when they
> encounter it: they know when they are being patronised. However, give
> them something honest, something that speaks to the inarticulate
> feelings that are sloshing about inside them and doesn't patronise
> them by speaking down, and something else happens. That's my
> experience.
>
Maybe we've come to a question of degree. I don't see Harvey's efforts as
so offensive they are patronizing. I think he was trying to capture a light
spirit, and he had in his head what he remembered from W.S. Gilbert, and the
likes of "Lydia oh Lydia that encyclopedia." People do enjoy such
diversions and I think he was hoping to thrust a bridge from poetry proper
(lest someone come along and thrust Aristotle in my face again) to sheet
music doggerel. I don't think he pulled it off, but I can't see it as a
cynical dismissal of the audience's intelligence.
Again maybe it's just my optimism, my respect for the times, and the people
of the times, and my utter rejection of any idea that humanity is getting
into a sucked intellectual vacuum by whatever philistine force we can come
up with, but I fully believe that the public can have a chuckle at Harvey's
bit, and still be kept in the state of mind that sends them to Yeats
afterward. It has ever been thus throughout history, in every culture.
--
Uche Ogbuji http://uche.ogbuji.net
Weblog: http://copia.ogbuji.net
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