In the interests of keeping the debate going can I say: O dear, o dear, o
dear, there is so much wrong with the underlying assumptions that I hardly
know where to begin.
[1] Who has decided, please, that it's the task of poetry or that poets have
to be 'fully responsive to the distancing of politics from our everyday
lives or to [...] competitiveness'? I mean, just who do we think we are?
Shelley? The amount of energy recently expended on this list on the subject
of how many poetry magazines were sold in the 1970s would suggest that the
impact of poetry and poets on the things Doug and Bill refer to is going to
be minimal. Any govt agencies monitoring that thread must be laughing their
socks off!
[2]'No place in the way poets should talk': that 'should' word! Who is
arbitrating please? Who has decided the academy is the enemy? Poets do what
they can and what they must. A lot of the work cherished by the members of
the list mixes up all sorts of discourses including the academic and the
critical. Several list members and members of its wider community work in
the academy.
[3]'The rise of information technology started during Thatcherism' - what
does this mean? It started before Thatcher and outside these shores. If a
political point is being made about information technology and late
capitalism, then perhaps we should all be aware that the US military had
developed very fast processors and pc's before the Silicon nerds.[At a
recent US conference, a US Marines IT spook made this claim]
[4]Thatcherism was the not the worst thing to have happened to the British
people.
[5]What is 'the correct response'? Again, who is arbitrating?
I could go on but I'd need a thesis and/or a manifesto as well.
Best,
David
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