Well that's not quite what I said. My vote of confidence in Meg B was a
measure of my surprise: i.e. she was way better than I had had reason to
expect. I got more or less what I expected from the rest (but I was only at
two of the sessions), though I think on balance I would have to give a
thumbs down to Tom Pickard who gave an excellent reading (i.e. performance),
but of very mixed material. I prefer his earlier work. The poems from
*fuckwind* only occasionally got close to the tightly structured lyrics that
I like of his. A change of direction for him which is valid, but kind of
passes me by.
James Kelman gave an excellent reading, and the work gained greatly by being
uttered in the tones that it records. I was less convinced by his
work-in-progress however, than by the "finished" prose pieces, possibly
because they were only parts of a whole (notwithstanding their status as
free-standing units within the projected whole) and therefore I could not
really get my head around them in the way that I could with the shorter
pieces.
Maurice Scully gave a good reading and I'd be interested to know if anyone
who was unfamiliar with the vast *Livelihood* text could deal with it cold
when read aloud. Those of us who've lived with versions of the text over a
long period would not have had a problem, but I suspect those new to it
might have.
Tony
----------
>From: Pete Smith & Lyn Richards <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Devon
>Date: Wed, Oct 20, 1999, 3:56 pm
>
> Thought we'd already been given the deafinitive report on Buckfastleigh.
> Thumbs up for Meg & Fred; tous les autres, aux lions.
> As one whose flight schedule took him away from there the day before
> this event, I, too, would be tickled to hear more.
> Pete.
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