'The Kiss of Life? The Kiss of Death? Some Thoughts on Linguistically Innovative Poetry and the Academy' by Tim Allen
http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Allen%20essay.htm
Quote:
"If we take the example two linguistically innovative poets, whose works are roughly speaking equal in merit, who then send manuscripts off to one of the better known publishers, I’d confidently wager that more serious consideration would be given to the one that had an MA behind them, particularly, and here’s the rub, by a publisher that was not that au fait with innovative work. No? You don’t think so? Think again. It happens to be the case that in the innovative sphere (and yes, outside it looking in) there is an inherent problem caused by the difficulty in assigning merit, of coming to a decision on how good or bad a poem is (an issue I’ll return to below). Such indecision is going to be influenced by the most minor factors, let alone a big symbolic factor like a track record of academic study giving that talismanic quality to one of the manuscripts. Even at the level of a publisher wishing to add kudos to the brand this bias is more likely. (Please don’t come back at me that such things do not happen because you must know that they do). Ultimately these processes would reveal themselves in class advantages and disadvantages."
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