Ric - I think that's the notable issue, that as you say,
antiprofessionalism is poetry's basic/est myth. EG why must we be told by
FABER that Armitage is (or was, before becoming a full time great writer)
a probation officer in the north of England? It's the old Barthes "writer
on holiday", turned risibly democratic: any profession but
high-bookishness - in this country at least - is a qualification to that
peculiar lifeworld full of livedexperiences, poetry's (postLeavisite,
provincialised) province. This would support Marjorie Perloff's view,
that a qualified reader ought to write reviews, if it weren't that the
kind of qualification hinted at (something more than a few books of POEMS)
is precisely what it is so difficult for the genuinely interested writer
to achieve - how many 'innovative' poets in this country have a
publication history (or DEMONSTRATED expertise) comparable to Bernstein's?
There simply aren't the presses to cater for this kind of public
qualification.
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