Randolph
Yes, some good points raised in the Olson thread, and, in my opinion, a
shame that we've become enmeshed in purple. I have no time, nor the
inclination, to justify my remarks on Brady's work, especially in response
to a message that congratulates 'us' on not getting bogged down in
justification. The following extract from Brady will have to serve to
illustrate a very brief note:
A livid trail of yellow nosing pond bank
separates molten silver from tangled deciduate masses, where
a filigree line of the stuff should hover,
in it she sees her future, gentle engineers shoaling up the bank
on which her populace surges.
The problem for me is the complete acceptance of the SVO syntagmatic
relationships of the base sentence form in English. As with many symbolist
and surrealist writers, the 'disjunction', such as it is, resides in playing
mechanical games with the paradigmatic relationships. 'Any decayed cabbage,
cast on any pale satin sofa'
The current poetry that interests me most tends to reject the old-fashioned
grammarian's obsession with the sentence, and plays with the syntagmatic.
Subject verb and object tend to become interchangeable. The syntax
challenges the readers take on the text at every turn. Sentences are not
language universals. It may even be possible to argue that sentences do not
exist at all.
Ric asked for people to mention stuff they're reading and like, so could I
plug Bill Griffiths' _Mr Tapscott_ (Amra Imprint), a book-length work
dealing with events around the Toxteth riots in 1981. Engaged, imaginative
and singing, this book underscores by 20-year-old belief that Griffiths is
on of the UK's 3 or 4 really interesting poets. Why is he so overlooked? My
spies tell me he did a good reading in Devon.
Best
Billy
hardPressed poetry
Alternative Irish poetry publishing and distribution
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If it weren't for human vanity, we would be classified among the apes.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: L. MacMahon and T.R. Healy [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, October 21, 1999 7:21 AM
> To: Brit'n'Irish
> Subject: purple people eaters
>
>
> brain not yet switched on, if ever, but nevertheless:
>
> enjoyed Billy Mills' posts re Olson, so much so that I was
> disappointed
> that he wasn't inclined to detail his dislike of Andrea
> Brady's work. C'mon
> Billy, you know what it feels like to be dismissed without
> reason. Cd you
> amplify the "sub-surreal disjunction" remarks?
>
> While on the topic, I thought Keston Sutherland's responses
> to Billy's and
> Douglas Clark's put downs (who'da thought they'd be
> bedfellows?) gracious
> and witty. Thank blank we didn't get bogged down in
> justification. Though
> I think it to the point to recall Douglas Oliver's remarks
> that Douglas
> Clark is a "good sport" in that no matter how forcefully he
> rejects the
> value of a given writer he generally goes back to the books
> for a second
> look.
>
> best
>
> Randolph Healy
>
>
> Visit the Sound Eye website at:
> http://indigo.ie/~tjac/sound_eye_hme.htm
> or find more Irish writing at:
> http://www.nd.edu/~ndr/issues/ndr7/contents.html
>
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