here's more noise
RING SHOUT 13
A terrible sense of completion
frame of a lake against
a field of cars
hand washed and leathered
the geometry generator
of wasteland epistemologically
and culturally united understanding
Refined togetherness
of sustained thinking
a topological neg-entropy
machined and ionised
netted against perception
frayed river break
a terrific exhaustion before stopping.
RING SHOUT 14
Devout speed of a raunchy
letter spray font beer
repass constructed reach cover
railings crawl visual
what was required
in order to do that and they say
would have an incentive
pass it on to each other
Let me away from here
without need of motor launch
should basil render
to smoulder crack away
inturgescence of drupaceous plum
beneath upright posture ultimatum.
and
something to be cross about
on anthologies really
how come the issue is about what anthology and not about teaching how to
facture
i mean - do you walk into a research group and say here's how a few dozen
other artists did it
or do you say try this out and then this
now is this controversial
i don't exactly get it
it's not because of the literary closure?
i don't know
meanwhile i really do find anthologies a difficult orangery
doesn't anyone else?
anyway I wrote this and shelved it out of embarrassment that it was such
a strange view
dear "Christopher Alexander"
(i don't suppose you're the author of _Pattern Language_, that was my
first question when I saw your name on the mail drop)
i wanted to add support to your suggestion that anthologies MAY not be
the necessity many of my mentors believe and i would insist are not the
best teaching either
i would go further
i have only found them useful as retrospective - a matter of referral
AFTER initial discoveries have been experienced - but then i don't teach
poetry - i would try not to isolate artwork in that way -
i remember a discussion ages ago with Peter Middleton on this issue
before the round of anthologies from Paladin started and arguments with
Eric Mottram who used Grigson's anthologies of the Enlightenment and
Romantics a lot
or look at the recent spate of _Fluxus_ from the Hendricks book
collections
anthologies are about the editors of anthologies more than about the
fragments they display
so of course W.B. Yeats' Oxford is interesting
it is apparent that it is teachers who want anthologies and in becomes
unnerstandable when discussions of previous anthologies are on the agenda
"the War poets" "The London poets" who?
is this block tourism all that useful? well it got me a cheap flight to
Venice -
is that the argument? the cost of access?
the difficulty in obtaining obscure presses?
well what perpetuates obscurity?
is it really true?
ask Methuen or Faber how many books they sell outside of those on GCSE
and teacher's lists -
they sell VERY few, certainly when Thomas A Clark, Tom Raworth, Rupert
Loydell and I discussed this with Chatto and Windus it was apparent that
we were selling more poetry as small presses than C&W were
availability is surely more a matter of getting students to investigate
and search. art & design students appear, on the surface, to have a
different problem, anthologies of art works are obviously (usually) at
least once removed from the object
_A&D_ have been trying to circumvent this, but art & design students soon
find out that the best process to learning how to participate in art is
to get out there and see the actual stuff and experience discuss engage
with it
now is the actual stuff of poetry in the anthology?
well it depends how prepared you are
and who helps with the preparation? - well teachers could help out
i would guess that ranges of balances and interruptions are necessary
you may find cull-ections useful, but surely poetry isn't just about
reproductions
any poet involved in performance will confirm that
don't you need some actual on-the-floor examples as well?
yes, i own a few anthologies, but you know the Goon Show anthology notes,
"i can show you the way to the city, but i wouldn't start from here, if i
was you"
best wishes,
allen
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