Thank you.
My mother, in retrospect, was a long time falling into her dementia. When
she finally had to go to hospital, my father sort of gave up.
Some of Prynne's poetry verges on genius, but, as long discussed on various
lists and from memory, being rebarbative maybe a strategy for longevity, a
repulsion fro being absorbed into the mainstream. I suppose only time will
tell on that.
As language changes, the annotated Prynne will only get a lot larger. A
bright spark may well reproduce Prynnes work alongside his sources. That
will be a large volume set.
Prynne is a gift to the annotation editors that's for sure.
Roger.
On Mon, 30 May 2016 at 16:03 Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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
> [log in to unmask]
> 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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