On Wed, 22 Jul 1998, Trevor Joyce wrote:
> Ric, my arguments here were 1) that EL has always strained to make
> innovation in Irish poetry seem a function of British or American
> modernism and, hence, an irrelevance, and 2) that the exclusion from
> Other of any work between Brian Coffey (born 1905, living outside Ireland
> since the '50s) and Maurice Scully (born 1950?) facilitates her reading.
> With respect, what text is required to support this? An affadavit from
> Dame Edna?

- ah, we're rather at cross-purposes here, Trevor: I was referring to our
earlier backchannel correspondence where you'd said that our Other Irish
coverage - Coffey, Healy, Mills, Scully and Walsh - represented "the
continuity of one specific element of the Irish poetry scene", i.e., as
you put it, "the Coffey succession". I said then words to the effect of:
Whilst each of these poets (and others) would admit to admiring Coffey in
their various ways, I didn't/don't see how you can reduce such a diverse
bunch (to my ears and eyes) to a single line without great textual
violence. Your justification for putting Healy, for instance, into this
artificial group, was that he and Coffey had some scientific background -
that seems a thin justification, to me. That's what needs more textual,
rather than extra-textual, support - in my opinion. Otherwise, I feel that
what could appear as reductiveness on your part will play right into the
hands of Longley et al., creating groups where you might be recognising
range.

None of this, of course, mitigates my frustration, as much as yours, at
the omissions. As I've said, in numerous ways, comprehensive coverage was
not ours to give; we couldn't attempt to make a full map of Ireland, or
Scotland, or London, or Tyneside, or of migrants bringing their tongues to
or from these places. These omissions are regrettable, but they will only
be promoted to distortion status by sloppy readers walking round our
introduction to assume a task for OTHER which is deliberately refuted.

You point to the "fifty year" gap between the births of Coffey and Scully
as "a hole". Yes, in a historical anthology this would be so. Never the
less, as you'll appreciate, in an anthology of poetry which is declared as
_Since 1970_, the emphasis is different: it's worth saying that the only
Coffey we include is of course late work - not out of disrespect for the
early work, but because such was our scope. Now, you'll say, but there are
others whose work might have been included in such a scope, and I'll say,
yes, but to do so would mean removing some of the work included, to the
detriment of the coverage as a whole, etc etc.

Can I at this point repeat an invitation made to Trevor earlier, widening
it on this occasion to include anyone else who regrets exclusions from
OTHER, or anywhere else for that matter, or who even (well, it could
happen) wants to enthuse: from time to time on this list I and others have
posted "enthusiasms" - shortish bursts on this or that writer, with a bit
of bibliographic referencing, and a sample poem or section. I'd welcome a
few more of these: Trevor or Alex might do Squires, or Trevor himself, or
Devlin, or Watters, etc etc; Doug or another might do a few Young
Cambridgers; or what you will. A bit more than a "yes, I like it" and a
lot less than 60k is what's called for. Unlike anthologies, the archives
of this list aren't restricted in terms of space, and perceived
imbalances in print could be partially rectified here.

RC




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