-----Original Message-----
From: M G MCQUILLAN <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 07 December 1998 14:56
Subject: The Question/a little political poem
> >A TIP FOR MOZAMBIQUE
>
>
>>I idle all day and frisk
>>covert rapacity mine
>>to glide from the deplorable
>>verdure of what ardour.
>
>>Pathos is the total metrics
>>of all this, everything,
>>the winning pretence of immodesty,
>>every fail-safe inch a rebuttal.
>
>
>There is an effect-of-analysis for poetry that can make discursive
>prose look one-eyed. Hence, for example, Drew Milne`s "Carte
>Blanche" or "High Time", from BENCHMARKS. Or even Keston`s
> squib on motives.
>
>
>robin
>
>
As a poetry consumer, I hesitate to comment on the quality of either Jon
Corelis' poems, or the one quoted here, from the perspective of artistic
merit. As Political Poetry or not, I suspect that Corelis succeeds,
politically. The Incident' has a surface that is reminiscent of a newspaper
report. It seduces me into thinking that I can understand it, and so slips
in some thing much more complex, and less describable in words.
Sutherland's poem, from my position of relative ignorance, appears to be
very clever. I suspect that, though it is impenetrable, this inscrutable
collection of words is not merely random. Each word has probably been chosen
with extreme care, and if only I were better educated I would understand
what the poet was alluding to. As it is, I am left feeling stupid.
This is, of course, a major political problem for the arts as a whole.
Politicians do not like to feel that experts leave them looking stupid.
Poetry consumers, likewise can feel alienated from a medium which (a la
Turner Prize) they suspect is out to make fools of them.
Politically speaking, Corelis succeeds in producing a 'political poem' in so
far as he retains, potentially, a wider audience in the body politic than
the possibly much 'cleverer' Sutherland.
Terri Eynon
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