David wrote--
altho' rather tired i do feel a need to put my oar in, as it were, one
thing i do notice on this list is a certain fawningness towards things
american - not that some of their stuff ain't good - but.....
I take it you mean for instance, as in John Temple's recent letters every
time he's reminded of a poet or anything a poet said or stood for it's
always an American poet (unless it's JH Prynne, who doesn't actually say or
stand for these days, so doesn't get drawn in too often).
This isn't a fawning it's a totally serious involvement but in a
partialised history. Everybody has a personal take and for some people it
comes out as American, and I think this might specially be the case for
British poets of John's generation many of whom focussed heavily on
American poetry, especially the poets in Allen's 1960 anthology, in
rejection of British 1950s poetry of urbane talk. For some this meant going
there, sitting at the masters' feet...., I mean it was a very thorough and
passionate undertaking, everything was risked into it. Things were to some
extent like this for me until I noticed I was indulging a lot of urbane
talk from New York instead of Hull, and that some of those masters thought
you didn't stand a chance if you came from Britain anyway. They couldn't
read Milton or Wordsworth; they really believed in America.
Anyway what I'm saying is that it shouldn't be read as a polemical issue,
any more than that some people won't have anything but yellow flowers in
their gardens, should.
./PR
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