Peter,
Even if I didn't say it explicitly; like you, I see continuity, a
special treat to someone as uncontemporaneous as myself. If my final
'thought' about 'the road' is an implicit acknowledgement of your sense of a
'contempt towards "politics" '( though I'd put it less strongly) in M's poem
(by the way, that was NOT a putdown of Dick Gallup!!!) I'm still troubled to
know to what extent it might be generational disaffection & to what extent,
and in what ways, a transfusion from a subsector of modernism we're
diligently providing her with as, like, heritage. How much ethical fervour
(and 'political energy') got diverted into 'measure' might be one way of
thinking about it. The Wobblies were lovely people but they ARE dead, I
think Ed Dorn once famously said. Williams & Olson (who I've deliberately
left out so far) were political but under constraints, both personal and
external, to 'behave'. Because times change, neither of them got to speak
out (with the possible exception of parts of Maximus III) in the way that
Dorn (and Ginsberg?) have done, but then perhaps no-one else has done so
since either. These musings under pressure of Keston's questions.
However you look at it, 'Wall',- carwise or go-kart wise- sounds like
seriously less room for manoeuvre than Douglas Woolf's "Wall to Wall"
Best,
John
Ps I owe you 25 quid, I see continuity!
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