All very interesting, Roger (& condolences on your father & mother).
I read the earlier Collected Prynne (& remember reading much earlier a few of the pamphlets). Then about a year ago read a PhD thesis on him that was as obscure (or obscurantist) as is poetry. Did go on about the political subtext(s). Some of which I believed. The writing (in the thesis) was rather shoddy, but some interesting ideas did sneak through).
I tend to thin P is sui generi & not a member of any school, but who knows for sure.
I dont pretend to ‘understand’ his poetry, but some of it hits had (& I’d say the learning how to eat comes through reading).
Do I return to his work the way I return to the poets I most love? No. His work deliberately repulses, I think…
Doug
> On May 29, 2016, at 1:19 PM, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n11/robert-potts/smirk-host-panegyric
>
> Reading this review, something which had been bubbling away suddenly
> surfaced. Indulge me whilst I take a trip down memory lane.
>
> 1. A long time ago, before I was unwell, I was a sly member of
> subsubpoetics - I had no idea what they were on about but I'd blagged my
> way in. I remember someone saying something about the "political efficacy"
> of poetry. (As a full disclaimer, I support politics in poetry. Like any
> minority interest - like religion, say - it should get a mention. It
> shouldn't be the be-all or end-all of a poem, but it's a legitimate topic.)
> Should one write poetry which influences politics? I think, yes. But it
> shouldn't be a polemical piece, show not tell.
>
> 2. I attended a reading by a Nigerian poet with lots of political poetry -
> particularly on torture. Peter Riley was there, and I remembered him saying
> something like "He says what he means." The poet, unlike Cambridge poets,
> laid out his political agenda for all to see, no hiding.
>
> 3. The thing that connects to the JH Prynne is his poetry on the Israeli
> occupation of Gaza. I suspect he's against it, but his poetry is such that
> one could easily deflect any accusation that he might be against it or even
> for it. The unbidden thought came to me that his - and the Cambridge school
> of poetry - is an example of moral cowardice. One can take a position, but
> at the same time one's poetry could take a matrix of meanings either for or
> against one's own position. That's the beauty of the Cambridge School poem.
> BTB, the Cambridge School of Poetry doesn't exist.
>
> Anyway.
>
> That's my thought for today.
>
> Regards, Roger.
Douglas Barbour
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https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
Oh, goddamnit, we forgot the silent prayer.
Dwight D, Eisenhower
[at a cabinet meeting]
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