messieurs et mesdames
i was particularly taken by lawrence upton's points d) & e) - yup,
poetry is a way of occupying the space between oblivion & oblivion &
without it i think i'd be even more 'bananas' than i am already. poetry
itself cannot put right what is wrong, & certainly there are things that
are 'wrong', no unacknowledged legislators please, however, language &
power are sometimes secret sometimes open lovers - admen, politicians &
journalists know this - & possibly, just possibly, poetry's small voice
can exert a surreptitious influence on this. hence, i believe, the
marginalization of the art, or its channeling into the lingua of the
house-trained mainstream - Career Poets are safe bets for the faceless
ones, they're never going to threaten the status quo as they want to be
part of it themselves. bring on the NewGen - cometh the hour, cometh the
Forbes. oh to be in Residency, at Londom Zoo, or a City Chambers, or
Widnes Railway Station Waiting Room (site of the genesis of 'Homeward
Bound') anywhere, in fact, as long as it's irrelevant.
alison, don't apologise for having the sulks, i think it's a practice
much to be recommended & the more emotional honesty there is on this
list the better.
i've just been looking thru this mornin's post - included is a pamphlet
from East Midlands Arts advertising the post of 'Nottinghamshire Poet
Laureate' - so the bureaucratic (i always have trouble spelling that
word - interestin' glitch, eh?) invades the white spaces - 'applicants
... wld be expected to write 6 poems during their term of office, &
attend 12 community events (appt. is for 12 months)'
i have little sympathy for Alexander Pope's politics but cannot help
thinking that something like the final passage of the Dunciad is what's
happening now.
so sulk as much as you want, alison, & lawrence, keep on being
argumentative, & mr pain, carry on living up to your name. at least it
has a whiff of the real about it.
or we could just talk about 'theory' - how many angels fit on a spondee?
what is the relationship between organic form, the Gulf War & the rise
of CNN? during a recent survey, 67% of people queueing at a Liverpool
DSS office on a Monday morning described LangPo as ..... answers on a
postcard please (address witheld)
i dunno how much sense the above makes, but it helps to ramble sometimes
(hey - that means i'm human!) once we had Kenneth Allott, & an anthology
that gave the impression that almost anything that could be termed
poetry was written by ex-public schoolboys refined in Oxbridge ( 1 or 2
thirties rogues excepted) now we have chaos - i prefer chaos anytime.
regards to all
david
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