My heart did sink a little on reading the line about not wanting "a
universities poetry" in Peter's contribution to the latest Gare Du
Nord, but you would expect that. I wonder if his gloss helps. It is
no accident that Carol Ann Duffy's poetry is on the syllabuses of so
many secondary schools, many of her works are set in schools
and present a pre-Sixties pedagogical scenario of totalitarian
dominie and flinching child that is criticised by the pedagogy that
sets the syllabus. There's no such straighforward exchange
between poets and universities but if there were, I think, say,
Peter's poem in Gare Du Nord would benefit more quickly than
would Keston's Mincemeat Seesaw, for example. Or anything by
John Wilkinson, or Allen Fisher, or J.H. Prynne. Simply because
the teaching of modern poetry to undergraduates is still mostly to
do with tasks like the practical criticism of manageable
ambiguities, intertextual allusions to other texts on the syllabus,
&c. "Universities poetry", like Peter's "moneyed language", may,
of course in time be revealed as the figure for the kind of bombast
that Trevor insists he abhors, it may not refer to any actual
University or even the concept of universities, but until that
becomes clear the analysis of difficult poetry in universities will be
the hobby of a few postgraduates and staff engaged, more often
than not, in other, remunerated pursuits.

 And there is no easy adequation or affinity between 'difficult'
critical theories and 'difficult' poetries. Critical theorists are writing
on Salman Rushdie, Angela Carter, Ian McEwan, the graphic novel,
Seamus Heaney, Muriel Spark, Toni Morrison, Wole Soyinka,
Sylvia Plath and emphatically not on Denise Riley.

 About Keston and Trevor's disagreement, my own unhappy
experiences along the same lines tell me that all the sex is
probably occurring backchannel at the moment but you would
expect me to point out that I don't think Trevor DID explain how the
qualities of being hifalutin, dull, polysyllabic, inward-looking,
complacent &c. advertise their reliance on a substantial bank
account, as opposed to Keston's lucidly proposed idea of an
institutionally-endorsed leisure activity more often than not divorced
from any considerable private funds. Trevor may think that his own
position is self-evidently true and Keston's is self-evidently self-
defeating: not to me it isn't. If, on the other hand, he thinks he did
explain the connection, perhaps he could summarise his points for
those of us slow on the uptake? Just to clear up any confusion.

   In the meantime, the performance involved in the phrase
"assuming, for the moment, that your mail isn't deliberate self-
parody" pretends to refer back to a fictional stage where the status
of Keston's remarks were in doubt, while making the gesture of
Trevor's assumption a generous one and continuing to indicate but
not argue that Keston's post is obviously bogus, (why, you only
have to look at it). A paragraph from another of Trevor's posts
communicates his own exasperation to be done with a discussion
that Keston is prolonging for his own narcissistic pleasure, when, if
he and I are right that Trevor's 'attempts to make clear' and 'points
already dealt with' refer to a lacuna, an argument that never
happened, Keston is merely insisting, as is his right, on a subject
being deliberated thoroughly for once.

 all best

 robin


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