On Thu, 6 Feb 1997, Andrew Milne wrote:
I venture that we need a better sense of the critical distance
> between the context of performance (here writing) and its possible
> audiences and politics. But perhaps we need an ethics of chat
> before anything as bold as a poetics or politics might emerge from
> this,
- Dear Drew, the distances vary from place to place, from individual to
individual, and who knows what the people in the next room are doing? We
can't hold the show till everyone's here and in agreement- it's that
urgent. You'd like more about poems, I'd like more about sound - it's up
to us to "make it so" as Jean-Luc says - in due course. So, we chatter and
blurt and share our opinions in the semi-dark, in the hopes that someone
half-understands some of it, while our ethics and poetics would perhaps
suggest that it's perhaps better to be silent.
In short, much of this is exploratory, not so much in what's said, but in
the fact that it's said at all - and I'd like to praise the courage of
the collected blurters "gathered" here: what's happening is that people
who would not normally communicate with each other are doing so. It's a
start.
Perhaps too much emphasis is placed on "public". This list is "open" but
hardly "public" other than in the sense that there are lurkers out there
(hi, lurkers!) and the archives are accessible. We've already established
that material from the list may only be used subsequently with the
utterer's permission, and I hope we haven't reached the stage yet where we
don't utter for fear that what we say might be of use to someone.
As for poet's shop talk, I find I can't separate the circumstances of
poetry from poetry itself in the neat way you suggest. I've enjoyed - for
instance - cris cheek's open and professional contributions on
performance, and my respect for his work grows daily. We - obviously -
work in different ways, but I'm happy to think that there are so many
parallels between my (tight-arsed classical music trained) approach and
his. There are other examples - perhaps we're just starved of shop talk in
the North? To me, these discussions lead directly to thoughts about how
poems are made, and what they're to do. I hope I never get too old or
self-confident to be concerned about that.
I do hope you can stick with "us" - and perhaps shift the conversation to
your own concerns as you see fit. E-mail "discussion" is very much in its
infancy, and whilst I'm aware of a mismatch between the exalted claims for
it and the actuality, I do feel that it's up to those who participate in
it to shape it. The one thing which does wind me up about e-mail is that
some of them go on for far too long - this is in danger of doing that, so
I'll stop.
best wishes
Ric
___________________________________________________________
Richard Caddel
Durham University Library, Stockton Rd., Durham DH1 3LY, UK
E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)191 374 3044 Fax: +44 (0)191 374 7481
WWW: http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dul0ric
"Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write."
- Basil Bunting
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