Robert Sheppard asks if I care to comment on the Mottram-as-poet
discussion.  I don't really.  It's up to you who must find models in poetry
to determine whether those available in Mottram are of any use to you or
not, whether as an historical marker or a vital resource.  What Lawrence
Upton writes makes perfect sense to me.

At the Mottram conference, I was trying to do two things:  1) explore the
interface of British-American poetry to determine how, if at all, the
various points along that interface had shifted since Mottram's day and 2)
urge poets, critics, and others to think through questions concerning the
audience and place of poetry not by beginning with  "technique" or its
implications and/or consequences but rather with venues, sites, and
institutions.  It won't take much to figure out that the two can't be
altogether separated, not once and for all anyway.  The text and its
possible para- and con-texts: you know the routine.  In the course of those
discussions I made some passing remarks concerning various matters such as
the rhetoric and content of EM's essays, the future of the Mottram
conference and the undesirability of erecting an academic monument
dedicated to EM's memory (and just that), and my own inability to read a
poetry that I find uninteresting at the level of particulars of phrase,
idiom, and cadence--processed through the filters of academe I said--and
sometimes gratutitously exhibitionist in its display of erudition.

I stress that these are my take on the poetry and specific impressions.  If
I had time I would call forth examples of what I mean and contrasting ones
from other poets.  This would offer a temporary shape to my own preferences
and limits.  In discussing collage and post-collage at the same conference,
Pierre Joris talked about part of EM's facture that I have not thought too
much about at least inside the kind of comparative analysis which would
allow even such evaluative remarks as those offered above.  Peterjon Skelt
also suggested that EM's poetry needed to be heard; I can't speak to that.
Bill Griffifths interestingly speculated that EM's poetry might be
presented as it was apparently constructed in his notebooks, with newspaper
clippings etc. interspersed.  It would matter whether or not EM ever sought
to publish his poetic work in this manner, and of course we'd have to see
what it all looks like.  Griffifths has had that advantage but seemed
determined not to let on too much about what he made of it all.

My remark about not building an academic monument actually relates to the
thinking about audience and venue.  The point of entry was a remark by
Jeremy Harding in a review of Conductors of Chaos suggesting that what used
to call itself the avant-garde had better give up on the idea that
effective points of engagement with the culture at large are still
available to it.  To reimagine venues for performance is one way to
consider the need for a (more common) place for poetry, and I'm not
surprised that cris cheek has been vocal and provocative on this very
score, as indeed events he's either curated or participated in have
suggested possibilities to me.  I might just as easily have expanded the
remark about academic monuments to ponder the ways in which the concerns
and practices associated with alternative poetries might be assisted,
promoted, engaged, and/or supplemented by academic practices and discourses
in ways that they too rarely are now.  No one "front" (to use an archaic
metaphor) will suffice; and I have discussed in the past differences in the
level of engagement with alternative poetries in British and American
universities.  I also watch with considerable curiosity developments at
Dartington and elsewhere--including the program Robert is shaping, the work
of Peter Middleton, Robert Hampson and others.

It did not escape my attention that there seemed to be few if any at the
Mottram conference or the SVP reading later that night who were likely to
be challenged by what was happening.  Nary a "mainstream" poet or critic in
sight so far as I could tell, mostly what appeared to be something very
much resembling some same old crew.  The same old crew has done and
continues to do valuable work.  But the desire to imagine that things might
somehow be otherwise is hard to kill and anyway one needs something to talk
about.  Whether or not Mottram gets taken up as poet into the list cris
produced (others will debate it and make their own)--Allen Fisher, Maggie
O'Sullivan, Cobbing, Raworth, Prynne, and so on--hardly matters to the
questions I am most interested in framing at the moment, which is not to
say that the debate can't generate useful or provocative discourse about
poetic value and practice.

I'm busy now with deadlines chasing me five ways at once.  I'm interested
to follow the discussion of Mottram's work among other issues on what is
recently a livelier list.  Sorry not to be able to contribute more just
now, though perhaps you'll think I've already gone on too long.

Best to all,

Keith Tuma




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