Well the roll call of the Noble speaks for itself
and it doesnt really matter to me that the political machine
is there
Beckett, Sartre, Walcott, Heany all great writers prize or no
prize... the prize for me is not the issue.... and I think it marvelous
that children are hearing/writing/reading poetry
On Sat, 10 May 1997, Keston Sutherland wrote:
Well Tzara was not exactly a faultless man either. A member of
that banefull organization known as the communist-stalinist party.... so I
compare them and that is a literary decision. I see links between the work
of Tzara's L'Homee Approximatif, Claudel and Hughes, I hear it in the
rhythms of their work . Evidently you dont. I also think Hughes' essays
are very important, and the Telephone is one of the poems which I beleive
will be read again and again. And that for me, as it has been for many
readers (and poets I might add ie. Horace, Pound and so on),is a
legitimate criterion. If I cant read the poems again and again, they are
nothing, they are dross, forgotten. I compare the poles of poetics and not
the politics, anyhow I know nothing about Ted Hughes politics and could
care less as far as this discussion goes. And we over here dont see the
Laureatship in quite the same way, We were just happy that a good
and great poet finally got and not some poetaster of the 5 order of
dullness. Anyhow Tennyson was a great poet and also had the role. hell
man its just a title who cares, thats not what I am talking about. Get me?
All for now.
Its the verse, the poetry not the politics I am interested in. See
Heaney's essay Extending the Alphabet I think he speaks to that issue far
better than I can. And he after all is from the war zone ... so
ciao, CD.
> > > >
> To link Tzara to Hughes is blatantly opportunistic and nonsensical,
> couldn't imagine wider poles. You think Tzara would have given
> overbearing and ticketed lessons in poetry to school kids? As for the
> precious laureateship, it's nothing but a condemnation to mediocrity,
> demoted even below its potentially petty political significance. Now that
> poets aren't patronised at court, a laureate is simply a
> non-controversial, sufficiently 'provincial' spokesperson, the spectre of
> a collapsed and risible tradition. This was the case even by the early
> 18th century - who cares about Colly Cibber other than as a caricature in
> the Dunciad? Who'll the next laureate be? G.Maxwell?
>
> Nobel Prize is little more, being dished out according to purely political
> negotiations and world-reconciling cultural patronages. Why didn't they
> give it to Joyce? Too many swear words? Why Heaney?
> Protagonistically Irish?
>
> big and muscular indeed, and soiled with the dirt of a real lived England
>
>
> keston.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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