On Fri, 10 Dec 1999 11:31:33 GMT, Peter wrote of Kelvin Corcoran:
> When someone writes
>last-lines like
>
>and the dead I love in the dance of their bodies again
>
>and
>
>interior darkness absorbs the light
>
>we stop asking such questions.
>
>anyone thinks these resonant connected periods are in some way morally
>untenable or reactionary needs to see a man in a white coat urgently.
Cheerful agreement with Peter in this: it's just one of a number of
ways in which Kelvin "resonates", now as ever. And of course, it would
be grim to have to propose a forensic method which calculated the % of
notional innovator over notional mainstreamer in the above, or any
other poetry. I've got a faint memory that when Peter Forbes reviewed
"The New British Poetry" years ago he seemed to get into knots on this
very point, and cited a bit of yrs trly in support of a general thesis
which seemed to run "Pah! And they're not even new either, I mean,
this guy's using rhyme and all" (apologies to Forbes for paraphrase
from memory of what was obviously a much more elegantly expressed and
cogent argument).
To me it's precisely because KC steps around in and out of various
voices (sometimes a rather strict classical measure, sometimes the
rich cadence such as Peter cites above, sometimes more syntactically
disruptive) that his work may be said to "innovate" in a way which is
very much his own, always rich, always able to surprise. Introducing
new shine to cadences which are often drawn from elsewhere.
RC
Footnote: I'll post the poem which so offended PF, for no other
reasons than I haven't posted a poem lately, and I hope it's enjoyable
still. It must be about twelve by now:
THE PATHS
Two converging from
night, household
sleeping - moving
so together:
here a dipper
there a stream
here a pillow
there a dream.
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