Surely, to talk of the mainstream is to talk of the infrastructure of the
poetry industry, rather than to try and identify a "genre" that is
mainstream?

Keith Tuma includes David Dabydeen and Fred D'Aguiar among poets who are not
in the mainstream but got into it as it were? What makes him do this? The
fact that they write about themes that include the history and culture of
black people, the Caribbean, and use Caribbean creole? I think that though
these are marginalised themes, they do not mean that the poets are. Dabydeen
is an Oxford graduate and a university professor. D'Aguiar is a graduate of
the University of Kent, and has enjoyed enormous, rapid literary success.
Their biographies reveal they work in a very privileged setting. It seems to
be, talent apart, this helps them develop a mainstream career as poets. Bear
in mind that a well known poet of working class background, Tony Harrison
overtly struggles on this rockface where the conflict between talent and
privilege rages like a storm. Harrison maks a conscious effort to integrate
the two purely in terms of the aesthetics and content of his poetry, and for
him, this involves rejecting the privileges of his education, and of
recognition as a poet.
   I am not trying to say Dabydeen and D'Aguiar don't, or for that matter,
Lockhead, Kay etc. who have also enjoyed acceptance, popularity and success
in mainstream terms, in spite of their humble background but do seem seem to
struggle like Tony Harris for success on his terms against being
appropriated by the mainstream.
  J.Lo
  [log in to unmask]




-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Tuma <[log in to unmask]>
To: Anthony Lawrence <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, May 13, 1999 2:57 PM
Subject: Re: mainstream


>>>It reeks of closed mindedness.
>>
>>
>>and bitterness
>>
>>
>>Anthony
>
>
>Hello
>
>I'm suspicious of the tactics of some anti-mainstream rhetoric and agree
>that the "mainstream" is, as Robert Sheppard suggests, a "construction," or
>it can be, at least in part, though it's not simply that. I'd even say
>that it can be, er, fluid. Does it, as Peter Riley speculates, refer to a
>style avoiding extremes? That seems to be one of its uses, though all of
>that also would be, er, fluid (more or less). Sociologically speaking
>("commit sociology--no!") it might mean something else, though that's where
>the problems come in as poets, perhaps especially so-called "alternative"
>poets, graft style and poetic modes onto larger social and political maps
>with little finesse and a lot of self-congratulation.
>
>Nevertheless, concrete examples might help. Imagine a book, an anthology
>say, which would seek to be eclectic in sampling a fairly wide range of
>poetry from throughout the century. Imagine that it included among
>post-1950 poets names such as Larkin, Davie, Jennings, Hughes, Hill, Gunn,
>Heaney, Markham, Mahon, Dunn, Harrison, McGuckian, Raine, Lochhead,
>Muldoon, Dabydeen, Kay, Shapcott, and Duffy (just to give a few examples
>that come to mind) alongside others such as Prynne, P, D and J Riley,
>Raworth, O'Sullivan, A and R Fisher, Cobbing, and C Walsh (to give just a
>few others sometimes supposed to be a small part of some kind of
>alternative). Now one would think that such a book could shape or reflect
>a pluralism, eclecticism, etc.
>
>But nobody is ever happy really: the smaller the pie, the sharper the
>knife; the sharper the knife, the smaller the pie, as a friend of mine used
>to say. Only so many pages in any book. Imagine that a so-called
>"mainstream" poet and critic got wind of such an experiment and had a look
>and found himself excluded--for whatever reason. Would he write something
>like the following?
>
>***
>
>Judging by the proposed contents, this XXXXXX seeks to demote or ignore
>many poems and poets who might be said to belong to the "middle ground,"
>and to promote those associated with an "alternative tradition." Its
>title, however, seems to promise a panoptic survey. The first thing that
>XXX needs to address, therefore, is what sort of book they want, and what
>sort they have had delivered to them. If it's published more or less as it
>stands (promising one thing, being another) it will get a severe kicking in
>the reviews.
>
>. . .
>
>The catalogue of missing figures is laughably long. Among those that
>immediately occurred to me are: Enright, Thwaite, Brownjohn, Beer, Fuller,
>Longley, Maxwell, O'Brien, Fenton, Paterson, Jamie, d'Aguiar, Hofmann,
>Reid, Szirtes, Carson, Didsbury, Selima Hill, Cope, O'Donaghue,
>Williams--and me for god's sake!
>
>The celebration of poets like Prynne, the three Rileys etc. is fine--but
>the price that everyone else has to pay is unbearably high.
>
>. . .
>
>I'm sure that many, if not most reviewers will think, as I do, that the
>book is deeply irresponsible, ignorant, confused--and confusing.
>
>I urge XXXXX to sort it out, either by keeping the title and broadening the
>range of poetry included; or by changing the title to make clear that the
>anthology favours 'alternative" (and American-loyal) poetry, and really has
>no time for or understanding of "the English line."
>
>***
>
>And so on. Imagine that the word "mainstream" was itself used in some
>other part of such a text, proudly--with a sense of the writer's ownership
>of the term. As with "middle-ground" above.
>
>Closed-mindedness? Bitterness? You be the judge.
>
>Perhaps this would be the rhetoric of a "mainstream" beyond
>"constructedness," of someone who both imagines and really does have the
>power of a special kind of naming. As Peter Riley suggests, having the
>history of a term like "mainstream" would be useful, but one wants also to
>know its current inflections--all of its uses and what it means when X as
>opposed to Y uses it and how these are related and the stagnation and
>animosity resulting, etc.. There is, apparently, no escaping the term. So
>I think that everyone on this list should put in a bid for it if they want
>to, though maybe you don't. Robert Creeley has said somewhere that some of
>the terms the so-called "alternatives" tend to use can be
>self-marginalizing--maybe he's right. I'd insist on a right to name
>yourself or, better yet, to refuse to name yourself except as "whatever."
>
>in haste,
>Keith Tuma
>
>
>
>



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