Dear List,
I am sorry to learn that Peter Riley inadvertently lost the
text of my last message to the List. I have sent him a copy
back-channel.
Others may care to flick back a day or so and find that I never
used the word 'complain' which Peter Riley attributes to me.
It is difficult therefore to respond to his challenge to respond
to a point I never made.
But this is indeed one of my grouses: how can we be certain
that information fed us on the List is accurate?
Look for example at Simon Smith's submission of 20 Dec 1998.
Is it accurate to claim that Alice Notley read at the Voice Box in
the year before Carl Rakosi did?
Are the terms 'avant-garde, concrete poetry, post-modern poetry,
sound poetry' the ideal description for Douglas Oliver, Alice Notley,
Tony Lopez and Stepehn Rodefer? If so why not include mention of
readings by poets like Brian Catling, cris cheek, and Aaron Williamson
who I understand also read at the Voice Box in the period in question?
Is it a type of poetry or particular poets that Simon Smith is
supporting?
Re-reading this strange 20 Dec public communication, I find it
particularly hard to bring into corelation terms like 'shenanigans'
and a 94-year-old poet like Carl Rakosi, whose health seems so prime a
concern of Simon Smith that it forms a fit basis for a jibe at a third
party. What should we in theory do in such cases? Ignore any
potential breach of confidence in gentlemanly silence? Make a gentle
remonstrance? Wonder why Simon Smith feels he has some innate right
'to convinve the aforementioned organisers' about who should read at
the Voice Box?
The question of why certain poets are chosen for certain venues and
others are ignored is indeed a proper question, in my opinion, to be
asked. But I am afraid it will simply end up with some defending
the integrity and others bemoaning the rifts in the existing sticky
webs of patronage.
In lamentation,
bill
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