Sorry to see the alarm at Billy's suggestion that poetry and theory
are, after all, different. The two are not unrelated: the two are not
the same thing, one may say. We know they overlap at times, that you
can have a theorist whose work is poetic in its scope and achievement,
a poet whose work draws upon theory - no problem, yes? But these are,
it seems to me, just points on a broader spectrum: it's equally
possible, (it seems to me) to point to theorists whose work -
excellent tho it be in theoretical terms - is so thumpingly dull to
read as to make comparisons with poetry lamebrained. And we could at
least conceive the possibility of a poet, back in the dark past, who
made his or her curious noises without any intention to expound or
propose a broader critical or philosophical theory, though whole
libraries of academic theories may have followed them.
I'm aware, not having lived in an igloo for the last thirty years,
that the boundaries are shifting (as much earlier the boundaries
between poetry and prose shifted, and it was an enriching process,
without either finally losing their identities) - that poets have
embraced theoretical approaches as both input and method to their
work, as they may have embraced religion, politics, lurv etc (no
surprises here, we generally concurred in the past that there's
politics in everything, no need, I hope, to go round that one again).
But in the end, however fascinated I may be with a poet's politics,
environmentalism, whatever, as a poet I still find myself responding
primarily to the thumps and squeaks they make, to their voices as
poets. This is why, if anyone ever proposed merging the poets' union
with the theorists' union, I'd have to vote against it, without any
disrespect to fellow-labourers.
As for Answers, anyone who's been a member of this list for three
weeks must doubt that they ever exist. I listen with enthusiasm and
pleasure for a number of things in poetry, but Answers, no, I hardly
expect those.
Sorry to be so hard on academic attitudes in recent posts. It's been a
bad week in the word-pit.
RC
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|