I was very interested to read your excerpts and restrained comment Keith,
partly because it reminds us how editors still regard their function as
having some historiographical purpose and value, but also because it might
provide an introit into a related discussion. Would list members agree
that 'eclecticism' has become unambiguously an exalted attribute among
people interested in literature? Might it not also be argued, that it is
irresponsible to subvert one's own considered particular likes and
dislikes, admirations and antipathies, only to defer with reputable
professional finesse to a scheme of inclusion that is validated from the
outset by being conceived under the flag-aspect of 'eclecticism'? Why
select or publish what you don't admire? There are of course reasons for
doing this; but I don't believe that eclecticism needs urgently to be
exemplified in our present circumstances. This seems rather like setting
out to elide traditions commercially, that of their own intent have
laboured to emphasize their theoretic diremption. The irony implicit in
such a project all dissipates as soon as it reaches W.H. Smith.
Capitalism is intrinsically eclectic.
Personally I believe that the commercial context in which a work appears
is crucial to the ways in which it might be apprehended. For this reason,
I'd never put a poem of mine in (say) the Times Literary Supplement,
unless it were conceived programmatically to be of an overtly
propagandistic appeal (which surely it could be). Likewise I'd not want
my poetry pasted up alongside Wendy Cope's. Because despite the fey
chime I care about it agonizingly, and because de facto hers is crap. To
let a reader browse from leaf to leaf and come to this conclusion for
herself, is not a liberty I'd be keen to promote (particularly not if it'd
cost her 12.99 or so).
So I have to say, I think such an anthology would create at least as much
tension among the less marketed poets whom generously it would seek to
represent, as among the punters for all the usual shelf-fillers. And I
think that's right -- kind of an out of town supermarket of a book, and
why should such a thing be produced? To make things easier for consumers?
I say this quite without contempt. I like consumers and think reading
shouldn't be made easier for them. When I look back at the poetry of
previous centuries, for example, it is precisely the separated appearances
of different types of production that helps me to understand more
accurately the practical poetic trends of the period, and to gain more
acute insights into the kinds of cultural production that authors wished
to be engaged in. Perhaps this anthology would propose to transgress
those demographics; but in the service of whom, other than present
browsers and a publishing house?
k
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