Thank you all of you who have replied to my request for books to teach
poetry. I shall reply later on your useful suggestions; but a quick
response: only a few surprises there.
I would like to reply to Allen Fisher who seems to propose to teach
poetry without such aids, in a research way.
His hostility to anthologies cuts no ice with me, with the necessity of my
having something in front of students so that they know what poetry is.
They certainly won't be wishing to innvoate as he supposes. They will
be wishing to fall back on the very recognition patterns promoted by the
National Curriculum anthologies he also mentions. I.e., on what they
know. Or worse: they will know nothing and will expect to be able to
churn out scripts of total self-expression, without any check on that in
their reading.The chances of finding somebody who's read, say, Allen
Fisher is remote, despite the sales of small presses. And if I do, it will
probably be because they have read his work in an anthology!
The anthology (prob. Conductors of Chaos) will be my avenue to
reading, certainly not to provide models. (Many fiction writing courses
seem keen on "craft of fiction" books which are often model and pattern
books. The course which I have written also involves the students in
readings/performances and in the production of poetry magazines; it is
not yet running.
|Nobody likes the selectivity of anthologies, and they are agenda-setting. I
wouldn't have edited one if I didn't believe that.
I also need an anthology for other purposes, such as to delineate the
course for a (potentially hostile) external examiner, and as a mode of
direction for any part time teacher who might teach a parrallel group. One
doesn't necessarily have a free hand in any of this. Nothing's hit the fan.
Cheers,
Robert
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