Dear List,

A quickie.  Sort of.  I cannot trace David Kennedy's ref in 
point 5 of his posting of 21 Nov 1998 to 'correct response' 
unless it be to my slightly satirical usage 'the correct reaction' 
of 19 Nov 1998.  For a better explanation see K.M.Sutherland 
on 22 Nov 1998 and the burble about history and imperatives. 
The correct reaction is to fit in to what you consider to be
the course of history....

In general I feel still no proper reply has been made to the
charges of 'arrogance' and 'power' seeking against Eric
Mottram.  Perhaps no refutation of such personal biases 
can be mounted. That Eric risked pioneering a subject -
American literature and culture - that has proved highly popular 
with students does not seem to me a proper basis for reproach.  
That on top of the time he spent teaching, there was a vast body 
of research work, and many volumes of poetry - scarcely likely to
advance a career - might suggest that 'power' was not a priority, 
and as for the 'crusading' jibe, we cannot all be cold-blooded, 
unenthusiastic, give-not-a-damn academics.  Even his widespread
contacts with American poets seems to have been used more to 
build up his archive than to advance his own cause, if he had any.

What undoubtedly he was was brusque towards time-wasters, but
consider the stream of requests for references, for information, 
for assistance he received - sometimes from Andrew Duncan - and 
it is something that he kept any measure of good humour at all. 
Time for a demonstration:

Consider, if you can, the cover of 'Poetry Review' vol.62 no.4 
(Winter 1971-1972).  It is by Jeff Nuttall.  The front and back 
covers each bear a single red figure, from trunk upwards.  On the 
front is Mottram himself, identifiable by the crowns on his tie 
(for King's College). His strangely distorted face which bears a 
number of possible apertures plays a toy trumpet from which 
issues a wash of song prompted by some music clasped in a hand.  In 
opposition, the back cover shows a frock-coated individual, whose 
horseshoe motif tie proclaims him a 'country member'.  His hand holds 
a sonnet-like text, and his mouth issues a wash of colour aimed at 
the Mottram figure round on the front.
It satirised the myth - current even in that day - that Mottram only 
represented a coterie of London members, and was alienating the 
'country members' who so depended on a traditional 'Poetry Review'.  
But when it came to a postal ballot on the elections to The Poetry 
Society Council in 1975 followed by an EGM to unseat supposed 
Mottram supporters in 1976, both actions failed miserably.  Where is 
the supposed popular mandate against Mottram?  Where is the 
withdrawal in the face of Thatcher (who only came to power in 1979, 
anyway, as I recall)?  

bill
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