---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 14:16:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: Keston Sutherland <[log in to unmask]>
To: Ken Edwards <[log in to unmask]>
Ken -
thanks for getting back to me, I understand your reaction and see now that
my own comments were more than a bit silly, given my own relative naivete.
I suppose also that I am, in some overt sense, a young Prynnite; this has
for a while been a cause of several anxieties, for me, it's an influence I
find it hard either to overcome or to dismiss, partly because my
admiration for the man's work prevents me from realising fully the
imperative of either. But I do see those imperatives, albeit imperfectly,
and am trying to move in my own directions right now (success limited).
Given your own influences, as you describe them, it's inspiring for me to
consider just how independently you seem to have arrived at your own
practice - I remember the reading you gave for Rempress in Cambridge,
which struck me but not with a 'Language' blow, whatever my partial
understanding of such a blow might be. Did you find this transition into
a less oppressive relatedness difficult - or were you ever as much under
the sway as I feel I might be? I -will- read more - have no real bias
against American poetry, am not sure that Prynne generally does either -
and try to reconcile that reading with my instincts (or see it extinguish
them). As for criticism being AFTER poetry: surely it's just as much, in
fact more, BEFORE poetry - much criticism exists, percolating into the
climates of effort and engagement as they evolve, whereas those critiques
that may come to arise in future have at best a latent significance at
present. I don't think that good poetry is written in anticipation (or
provocation) of a relevant critique, and I have previously suspected
Language poems of occuring in this way - a kind of relevance-abidance that
perhaps circumscribes the opportunity for substantial (and implicitly
self-criticisng) poetry. But as I say, I will venture further.
Thanks again, Keston.
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