Good to get the various takes on the London thing. As an out-of-towner I
obviously didn't get the full strength of it, though the names and
concerns are all familiar to me. My association was nearly always on a
day-trip basis to read (or listen) at the unreconstructed Poetry Soc, at
Kings, Subvoicive etc., and linked too to raids on Compendium, without
which I'd've been flummoxed. My main source of information at first was
Pete Hodgkiss's _Poetry Information_ - which admirably put before me
"London School" "Cambridge School" "Northeast School" and even "Restofthe
World School" in both its listings, notices and reviews - so for some time
I didn't differentiate...
Only difference was, that since I got invited fairly regularly to London
(in spite of my open distaste for the place per se) I got to be aware of
the energies and excitements there, the feeling that there was always
something new coming to the top of the pond, and nearly always it was
associated with the activities of Mottram Fisher or Cobbing. Since I
didn't go to "the other place" I never got that sense of bubbling energy
from it. Not a critical comment, just a fact.
I guess the NorthEast bubbled in a different way... with three flourishing
reading centres (Morden Tower in Newcastle, Colpitts in Durham and
Ceolfrith in Sunderland) there was obviously a clear commitment to voiced
poetry which began with Bunting and Pickard (but also goes back to much
earlier times if you want to get all academic about it), but publishing
programmes were obviously important too - apart from my own Pig Press,
there were at various times Colin Simms' Genera, Pete Hodgkiss's Not
Poetry and Galloping Dog, Eleanor Makepeace's Shadowcat, a string of
magazines from Brian Marley's Laundering Room, Tony Baker's Figs - and
others... It's also important to note the steady stream of offcomers who
came to read - and sometimes to stay. Certainly then, never a school, more
of a fungus, with a certain number of symbiotic relationships, long
periods of imperceptible mycorrhizal growth and the occasional crop of
bizarre fruit bodies...
Hope this helps...
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Richard Caddel
Durham University Library, Stockton Rd., Durham DH1 3LY, UK
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Phone: +44 (0)191 374 3044 Fax: +44 (0)191 374 7481
WWW: http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dul0ric
"Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write."
- Basil Bunting
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