I'm glad Keith has responded and at length. My suggestion was not to
make Keith enter the "debate" about Mottram's own poetry, but to outline
some of the rest of his paper which he usefully did. I thought his remarks
about the Harding review very dispiriting - as the editoirial stance of the
anthology's introduction is. (Indeed, at a Writers Forum I performed my
re-write of the anthology's introduction, supposing it to have been
re-published in the 21st C: not ot be published). Particularly interested in
that I am to review C of C in a review article and Keith's observations on
a more common place for poetry obviously falls well into the debate
concerning venues, etc, widening access, etc, conducted here.
Thoughts on the monumentality of the Mottram Memory are interesting:
while the archive is going to be an important source, (history) I wonder
what will be its symbolic importance (myth), and whether the latter might
not prove to be more important. Every unopened provisional driving
licence is preserved in this archive, when what we want are essys on
poets and poetry and, yes, the poetry. In the public domain. (There seem
not be be plans to do vols of his Brit po stuff whereas his American
Studies material might see the light of day, which is a shame.)
But this is not to be the only place we will find out about British poetry of
the 1960s onwards, I hope. I have already heard older poets wondering
whether there has been an academic takeover of the sixties : when their
memories clearly (and less and less clearly?) see the formative
institiutions as outd=side the academy.
Hmmm.
Robert
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