Interesting interview. I like what he says here:
"'Expression' is coming under attack every day.... check out the PEN website. As Terry Eagleton has pointed out in one of his critiques of Postmodernism, significant transformative action – artistic creativity counts as transformative action – in the real world requires the participation of an integrated unified, human individual/subject. Postmodernism usually denies this possibility. Eliot, if he were still with us, would be quite at home with all this self-denial stuff. What would he make of all the other related fads of radical chic? These include social constructionism, reader response theory, linguistic determinism, ethical criticism, post-colonialism and eco-criticism – whatever intellectually hypertrophied school of thought the current wave of ‘radical’ poets use to advance the next generational revolt – theory as power dressing. There is major issue of identity here, all bound up with a stereotyped Anti-Romanticism (T. E. Hulme via T. S. Eliot)."
".... the mere existence of a 'voice' disallows nothing – the existence of the authorial presence in no way implies interpretative exclusivity of signification in the way that you say – why should it? Also, didacticism is not dependent upon the 'voice' in any way. It is a quite separate matter, I think. Propaganda is often disembodied, anonymous and impersonal. Mind you, I guess there might be conflicting views on the nature of the didactic. My ideal poem would always resist clear-cut interpretations or didactic messages. Protest poets might have a different view. What has happened since the Seventies is that theorists have replaced the iconic (‘Romantic’) personality cult of the artist with a personality cult of academic gurus, a pantheon of celebrities drawn from the post-Structuralist intelligentsia (e.g. Baudrillard, Foucault, Lyotard, Kristeva, Cixous, precursors such as Levinas, and a number of others). It is in the interests of theorists to deny the crucial role of the artist and elevate the ‘reader’ to a central position in the discourse, but it is their discourse – a discourse of academic command and control using the ‘reader’ is a propaganda ploy. I would assert that most readers relate to the ‘voices’ of their chosen authors living or dead, and this intimate, one-to-one relationship is a defining aesthetic experience for most readers most of the time."
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Jeffrey Side wrote:
Peter, here is an ebook he did for me:
http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/FROM%20OUTSIDE.pdf
Blurb:
'From Outside' (a selection of poems from 2006 to 2011) takes place at “the borders of the future”, where a solitary cyborg with metal arms stands waiting for another client. The dramatis personae are a cast of mad performers, misfits, hick comediennes, mutants, celebs, ghosts, undercover agents and the Eternal Bride from the Large Glass. The tutelary deity is pale-faced Hypnos: guardian of desperate poets and “you” (the invisible companion) or, perhaps, even “you” (the reader) relaxing on an old park bench, watched over by hunched black birds…
And an interview I did with him:
http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Evans%20interview.htm
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