Marjorie - whilst accepting that 'language' poets (as you say, a somewhat
facile tag, but then which isn't) are by no means super stars and
therefore hardly seem to require a culture-industry style going over, I
can't agree that criticism - however peculiarly located or limited - is
counterproductive. Sure, obviously Heaney is huge cheese here at Harvard
(I'm visiting for the year), as he is at all the retail variants, and as
such he is roundly slated (see the list archives, Allen Fisher's recent
message for example) and, -what is more-, he is within this list largely
ignored. Ignored because of a merely tangential, inevitably polemic
relevance. I for one am happy to criticise LPs because I have become
accustomed to the high likelihood of their significance, even under such a
team heading. This criticism seems incumbent, of increased rather than
diminished bearing precisely because silence through decorous expectation
of some kind of passive alliance is so entirely affected. I find language
poetry questionable; it would be a dismissive determination that would
prevent me from putting the questions as I see them (it would be the same
dismissiveness in me if I didn't listen to the answers of others).
Criticism is after all at least part flattery, despite the opposite urge,
because it recognises crisis; unpolitic negligence is expressed
differently - as inattention. Besides: "hallowed" is hardly -our- term
for this place (H), and matters as little (and as much: in the same way)
as it matters that Heaney is a nobel winner. We can groan, howl our
proactive aversions. And: the 'larger world' doesn't need LP, -yet- at
least, or doesn't need it in the desired mode of that relation; is there a
helpful small world indemnity (is this virtual community of criticism
subject to community-criticism?)?
Keston
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