It is good to hear from you Kona
>Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 11:45:28 +0100 (BST)
>From: "K.E. Macphee" <[log in to unmask]>
.
>Alison, thanks very much for your post about careerism, which I
>thoroughly agree with. I've chosen to construct my working arrangements
>to provide time and space for writing without having to rely on it to
>support me, by taking a half-time job putting together an educational
>E-zine (about maths of all things!). It's based in the university so the
>pay isn't brilliant, but the working conditions are relaxed, I like my
>colleagues, and most importantly, I really enjoy it. I don't in the
>least consider this selling out on some "true poetic existence": on the
>contrary, I feel that it's partly a gesture of my commitment to my writing
>that I could be out having some high-paid, high-hours job in the computing
>world and I'm relinquishing that option in order to have time to write.
>(Of course, I'm being a little disingenuous here - to be honest, a core
>motivation for this decision is that I simply *prefer* to organise my life
>this way, to have time to stop and smell the roses etc etc etc).
Not the first time on this list that maths and poetry have been shown
to compatible occupations.
Don't ever let the careerists (in whatever sense) stop you from enjoying
life or make you feel less of person because you are NOT scrambling
up some ladder or other.
>Alison, perhaps you're right that gender does have some involvement in
>the willingness to make these kinds of compromises: for better or worse,
>child-raising issues do still confront women with the need for compromise
>in their personal and professional lives, and with the necessity of making
>often difficult choices to find the right balance. This is a banal point,
>but one that's grounded in the reality of my own life.
at the risk of sounding chauvinistic
lots of us chaps have caring roles too
>. I'm sorry if I'm naively ignorant of an existing consensus
>on the list about the taintedness of the TLS and Cope and I'm pissing
people
>off by kicking against that consensus, but I was brought up in a culture of
>*extreme* intellectual snobbery, and I'm finally endeavouring to extricate
>myself from it: this tends to make me (over?)react when I feel I'm
>encountering it.
I suspect quite a lot of the people getting this list
share your views, but have kept relatively quiet
for whatever reasons
the perceived consensus may be an inaccurate picture
>I had been feeling (perhaps perversely) that
>something so "mainstream" (coupled with my fondness for "mainstream" poets
>such as Heaney, Armitage etc) rather disqualified me from participating in
>this list. Glad you 'fessed up first!
>All best,
>Kona Macphee.
>[log in to unmask]
You are as qualified as all the rest of us
Taking an interest is all the qualification needed I think.
The list owner will correct me if I'm wrong
yours
Gerald
Gerald, Christine and Craig England,
New Hope International Publications, Haiku Talk,
NHI Review, Aabye's Baby, Zimmerzine, Netmiser.
http://www.nhi.clara.net/index.htm
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