Thanks, Lawrence - I'm clearer now. Not rigid but with a coordinator at the
rudder. Seems inviting. Andrew
On 8 February 2012 23:33, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> So it's a bit like what goes on here at times...?
>
> Doug
> On 2012-02-08, at 7:45 AM, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>
> > Well, hang on, #63 goes as far as Brockley. That's on the way by several
> > miles.
> >
> > Formats vary but stay the same.
> >
> > We gather downstairs in the pub and sometimes hang on there till after 4
> > if we know or think we know someone is coming.
> >
> > But generally we go upstairs around 4 and sit around, sometimes
> inheriting
> > a furniture configuration, sometimes moving it a bit, sometimes coping
> > because there's an odd but deliberate layout for a later event.
> >
> > I usually say something ex cathedra, ex convenor, though I may not be the
> > first to speak; it's rather informal.
> >
> > There are not many of us for various reasons; but that's not the main
> point.
> >
> > I have noticed that I tend to say _who would be first?_ which may be
> > indicative of pedantry. (Later I say _who would be next?_... I may stop
> > now I have vocalised it. I always forget until I have done it again weeks
> > later.)
> >
> > Someone reads. Someone else reads. We time out or run out of work.
> >
> > Over the last 18 months or so, talking about the work has increased
> > greatly. The implicit injunction has always been not to make destructive
> > criticism (e.g. I don't call that poetry, that's not a sonnet, being
> > widespread obviuous examples of what we are trying to avoid.)
> >
> > Clearly, from bits and pieces archived that I have read, that was
> > happening in the early days in the 50s and a bit later. In those days
> > typed texts sent in advance were the order of business. By the time I
> > started going in the early 70s, work was received without comment or
> > enthusiasm. This was Cobbing. I am not sure how many would have had the
> > imagination to steer it in another direction without any aesthetic /
> > ideological undertow. If he really couldn't cope, he tended to say
> > nothing; mostly he said _very good_ but without much emphasis on either
> > word. I'd like to think that I would be where I am now, but it seems
> > unlikely. Many / most groups I have seen or attended or read to seem to
> > have an agenda.
> >
> > Now and then people can't take it and don't come back because the
> > aesthetic preference of the group is clear even if indefinable. But it is
> > broad and it is wider than the insipid _linguistically innovative poetry_
> > which I have tried to love as a definition and cannot.
> >
> > We work on the inherited assumption that if there is anything to what
> *one
> > does then others will respond. You can and always could comment, but you
> > did it by saying _it might be even better if..._ or some such
> >
> > I think that is good pedagogy
> >
> > Just now I would say that everyone of the regulars is surprising us every
> > time, and with a delight, and a different one every time, so that all you
> > want to do is praise first. Then maybe comment.
> >
> > Publications can show other directions though wf is not publishing so
> much
> > nowadays as it once did. The occasional invitation can be directional but
> > in a good way. It may be that everyone knows the invitee. If not,
> > implicitly I am saying _listen to this_
> >
> > That's about it. People are welcome to attend without reading and some
> > come wanting to be judged, feeling it seems that they have missed out
> > unless a magister says _correct the following errors_
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
> 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
>
> What dull barbarians are not proud of
> their dullness and barbarism?
>
> Thackeray
>
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--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
http://www.mullamullapress.com/QWERTY
BLUE ROSE enovel avail. at Amazon, Smashwords and
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