Yes to Ric's five point suggestion. The canon I referred to was entirely
made of polystyrene. No danger of injury to anyone. And as regards
permanence. Last I heard the concept was still playing the pubs, not
because it needs the money, but just to keep its hand in.
I agree with Nick Kearney's, John Kinsella's points. However, the list is
fairly accessible. Loads of schools are on the net. The public library
system offers facilities to characters who can't afford a computer and don't
want to go to school. And there's the cybercaffs as well. By the way, the
website for british poets looks and is wonderful. Its address is
http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/british-poets/
Thanks very much for the poem John, which reminded me of Prynne.
Helen Frances'
>I would like to hear thoughts on the relationship between "understanding
> contemporary poetry" and the experience (if I may use the word largely) of
> reading poems.
Hmmm. Wouldn't mind if you joined a few more of the dots on this for me,
Frances. The thought occurs that too committal an idea of the nature of
*contemporary poetry* can be an unduly distorting (as opposed to just
distorting enough) lens through which to read a given poem. Another of
those phrases,like taste or canon, which span an enormous area while having
no visible means of support (apart perhaps from a magnum of Platonism). Here
in Ireland it could be argued that the prevailing *understanding* is a bit
static and would exclude, fairly aggressively, a great deal of work. For
instance, thinking, in a poet, is held to be a very low form of cheating and
difficulty, self-indulgence. Repeated exposure to this has led me to, well,
I don't know, I suppose I don't fully trust my own taste. Sure there are
poems, many of them gratifyingly weird, which I enjoy immediately, almost
somatically. Nor I am not immune to the temptation to construct the
critical equivalent of a blunt instrument out of their characteristics. But
I'd rather not. And in the absence of such I like to feel my way with a
text, whether using close reading as if no other poem had ever been written
or using a Rolf Harris (TM) three feet wide brush, whatever, but either way
to walk through its streets and courtyards without a guide or one of those
headphone things so popular in museums now. A critical understanding must
make errors, whether by believing a few coloured beads to be reely-trooly
gems or by using rare texts for the floor of the budgie's cage. The choice
of error is almost infinite. But of the pair above, I prefer the former.
Anything can be a poem.
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