From Keston Sutherland onwards poetry looks like it is clasped in the hands of academia & from there to where is the question?

My initial hopes that social media might alter this trend have come to dust & "Making it new" is no longer possible. Indeed social media itself now looks very jaded apart from online support groups usually one issue projects. Unlike many i do not regard the hard text book as the ultimate reading experience. The failure in publishing is to stick with formats from centuries long passed with little research on developing the book. 

Writers are not the most social of people with many reclusive loners or mom pop apple pie domestic units. This involves little social interaction & yet the same people will go up to the International Space Station to plug a book. 

In the pre electronic era snail mail & the phone dominated contact & the internet at first looked promising. But instead of an opening out a closure culture persists & nobody talks to anyone else. Yet gaining grants involves interaction or finding reading gigs so there is activity. And of course the rewards of academic life offer solace as well as economic rewards. 

The push of the publishing major houses against Kindle or Kobo has achieved its aims with subtle PR. Few writers who could be termed experimental appear on Google Play or Kindle platforms & small presses are scarce on both applications. This i feel is an error but i presume the reasoning is financial. But to buy online books is by no means cheap & nothing in life is free. 

The micro apps have vast potential & Twitter is a fine servant to many literary giants & to the writer of 2017. Snapchat has a vast capacity as it grows & expands but Facebook now seems a dorment medium application. It probably died in 2011 or thereabouts & yet is the market leader on a global market level. Every app Facebook swallows whole soon faces instant censorship by Mark "the lover of freedom of expression" Zuckerberg. Steve Jobs & his crew at Apple were also market leaders since its foundation & Tim Cook has continued Apple's ultra elite tradition. Apple shops are in upbeat areas & expect a journey if you need to drop into an Apple shop if from a poor area.

Academia is where the action is & to be outside it is a huge barrier. But where is poetry going in 2017 & how can anyone do something to move poetry forwards? Most are quite happy with the status quo & buy the big names mainstream & non mainstream in high numbers.

A key fact is that the notion of the performing poet does in no way imply any break with tradition. I enjoy fresh subject matter & no bowing to past icons who worked within a conventional poetic medium. It was Laura Riding Jackson who stated "bodies have had their day" & that is valid in 2017. Indeed the human body & human mind are limited as one sees in rock concerts or theatre. Animation has vast potential but is not used as much as it should be even in movie making. 

To me Keston Sutherland is a conventional neo Marxist of a kind i encountered in the late sixties. If Keston & his generation hold sway little will change in poetry or in society. To perform must go beyond old rants or themes that are with us for decades. Street theatre has limits & so has theatre itself but there must be new options as yet untried. 

Thinking outside the ivory tower carries little weight & of course only lucre matters in the literary world. Once one nails down an academic post means status is the next step on the ladder. There are those who say poets live on scraps but i doubt if many have ever seen the inside of a food bank?

Cheers

sc

remembering Finbarr Coughlan of Cork's Wycherley Terrace near The Lough. a warm smile & a lovely humour that shone brightly upon us "only a day before us all" 

On Monday, 17 July 2017, David Lace <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Sean a fair appraisal of Keston. He seems to get mixed responses. Here’s a piece which mentions him slightly disparagingly in passing

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2012/04/15/poetry-on-trial-2-poetry-and-tribalism-by-jon-stone/

and this piece is slightly critical of an interview he did

https://bebrowed.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/keston-sutherland-interviewed-at-length/





----------------Original Message----------------

Sean Carey wrote:

Keston is alive and well and networking so it is business as usual Peter. I bought a much acclaimed book by Keston on Google Play expecting to be blown off my feet. The reviews were on about Keston revealing his soul so I bought the blurbs. Then the reviews as well as interviews looked fantastic and the title referred to a washing machine code. 

Sadly rather than being blown off my feet I found myself looking in vain for Keston's soul in a very elusive textual context. All that was there was word salad post Prynne fare that looked tired and jaded. I recall that day "Sweet Soul Music" was on the radio sung by Arthur Conley. Otis Redding nurtured Arthur and that song is pure poetry. It made Keston's "masterpiece" seem very flat indeed which left me no longer buying anymore of his work. He still appears in my Amazon plus Google Play suggestions but in my poety I like rhythm soul as well as directness. When Paul Buck in his work and editing of Curtains got direct on erotic BDSM subject matter there was no evasion. Keston's text in comparison is evasive & lacks honesty in a sincere sense. Of course there was Keston's playing to the gallery neo Marxist stance coupled with some lovely lyrical sections. But for me the reviews copped out on the actual content because it was Keston Sutherland. In blunt terms the book is a total failure & not in the slightest bit honest. If Keston aimed at a confessional account of his personal life and times he failed to pull it off. I saw better work in Paul Buck's Curtains magazine decades ago. Being an old political buff also means I fully grasp Keston's politics which I am sure go down well in Essex & in London & Cambridge.

Many decades ago a term used against Iain McLeod was "too clever by half" in a political context. Iain died one month after moving into number 11 Downing Street but my own recall of him related to bridge. He was a top class professional bridge player who was very very hard to beat. In Bantry Bay I recall Duncan Sandys then a minister heading off up to Bantry House. The guest on the ample Sandys craft moored near the shore was Iain McLeod. Local bridge buffs as well as players from Tralee and Limerick had had a bridge session judged by Iain McLeod. Many prospered from Iain's genius at bridge long into their careers. No doubt about it Iain was a class act who could have played bridge full time. One or two tips from Iain could have landed one in exotic places living off bridge. 

What has a forgotten Conservative minister got to do with Keston Sutherland? Just as Iain McLeod excelled at bridge Keston is a major poetic talent. To say otherwise would be absurd as well as unfair and my own letdown on one book matters little. Keston is a steller star of modern British poetry & I am on the extreme margins. Any efforts to lure Keston out of ivory tower fell on deaf ears yet many far better known poets are not as anti social as Keston Sutherland. I am sure if I had a nest egg to offer Keston would quickly dash off a response. Yet to dismiss him outright would be a huge error & he knows his market. Those who love his work will stand by him regardless so Keston Sutherland will hopefully be around for decades to come. 

The absurd acclaim for Keston reflects a dull poetic culture that badly needs new names & faces. As the older generation are lost to us we must set far higher standards & not let a Cambridge clique of wannabes don the Prynne mantle. "Make it new" may seem corny now but is there a serious poetic talent on the British & Irish horizons?

sc