 |
 |
----- Original Message ----- From: <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: 04 August 2000 10:53 Subject: RE: Politics IN poetry | As a means of checking aesthetic credentials, I don't think any simplistic binary politics will do: unless you can begin to accommodate the subversivenesses within what might appear stylistically to be a deeply conservative poem (Swift, say), or conversely spot the conservatisms that can lie behind work that appears stylistically and politically radical (some of Olson, perhaps). It's just not good enough to say something like "This poem uses the language of the rulers, and so is politically suspect. End of argument." Crude polemic and agitprop are the antithesis of poetry, which alerts more subtle and - dare I say - more interesting energies. Hear, hear, Alison. Very little that is any use to us is binary. Most things are either yes, no or maybe and the maybe is multifarious and the yes and no are ambiguous The stories of politics that are told in popular media are not good rich stories but spivs tales told for ulterior motives ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Robinson" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: 04 August 2000 08:08 Subject: RE: Politics IN poetry | Can I suggest that this is your idea of how poetry functions and what | position it takes. Not all poetry is political. Yours is a point of view | that can be applied to pretty much anything. so it can | By your logic the coffee I am drinking is inherently political due it being: | | "born out of a place in a set of social | relations, and therefore serves an interest(s) which | defines itself in terms of its place in those | relations" drinking it is. are you drinking alone or in company? who made it? what are you doing or saying as you drink? who made it? and in what circumstances and why? who paid for it? who was paid for it? who grew the beans and what were *they paid? L %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%