Keston, thanks for this. It's gonna be hard for me to go much further,
since I wasn't there, don't know much what he read, and only the overall
consistency (in general terms) of LH's performances inclines me to chip
in. The one you heard may've been totally different to all the ones I've
heard, I'll just have to chance it. But the possibility exists that you're
reading LH's expectations through spectacles of your own making, criteria
which concern you, rather than the ones which he offers. There's nothing
wrong with this de facto, unless it leads you to another kind of
closedness. For instance, you say:
> The steadiness of this regard for the possibilities of
> reflective locutions is at heart a mistake, I think, or is NOW at least.
> It has -been steadied-.
- You may find it so, I imagine. I'm inclined not to agree, in general
terms, and I'm damned sure that LH wouldn't. The sheer effort required to
uphold, even momentarily, such steadiness, to maintain some level of
democratic dialogue, is - not just for us old farts, I should perhaps say
- extreme. It's significant that you mention his stops-and-starts, his
disagreements, as _self_ dissuasion, but - as far as I can see - you don't
mention the deliberate, specific *spaces* in his poems at all (he's not
the first, or the only poet to use space; it's a common enough resource).
I'd suggest that if you draw these things together you get a thing which
is very far from steady, which is dynamic in its openness, accomodation,
on-goingness. LH lays down very few conclusions.
> And all this to say how simple life is, nature is, the earth is, really.
> Simplicity is what he picked. I'd say, this is because it's more fun for
> him.
>
> Still the earth is a fucking mess.
- uh, again, I think I see more of your own approach here than LH's, but
want to find a way to suggest that your impatience with said "fucking
mess" is not a million miles from LH's at many points. Where do you get
the idea that "Simplicity is what he picked"? Not from the texts, either
as sounded or on the page - there are so many complexities recognised and
lived with there which your account seems not to take account of.
But then, I wasn't there. Tell me - with specifics - why it ain't so. Your
experience of Michael Palmer (for instance) so much tallies with mine
(again, elsewhere) that I'm ready to listen, as ever.
Best,
RC
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