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I think you misunderstand me. In most of the cases I mentioned poets received a lot of attention and virtually no censorship. In others there was no censorship and no attention. Great poets and vibrant poetry worlds prevailed in all cases. It's simply not of itself much of a factor, if at all. And while I agree that "our current system" aint great, it too produces among the trash a fair amount of great poetry. Mark I agree with Mark that lack of attention makes >poets excelle, so maybe we can come up with an anti-vanity exercise-routine which >all poets will be expected to practice every morning- ala '1984'. Either way, it's >not in darkness that poetry grows; it certainly needs light, generosity, >enlightenment and freedom. It's just that our current system (with journals, >microphones, grants and universities) is very open to abuse by the vain, the greedy >and the 'careerists', and poetry as an art-form has suffered a lot from that, but >dictatorship is not the soltuion. Besides which, we laready HAVE censorship in our >brave new world; I've been told personally that I need to tone down if I want more >publications. > >Ali > >---- Original Message ---- >From: Mark Weiss >Date: Thu 3/8/01 14:06 >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: STIMULUS: POETRY AND CENSORSHIP > >Very interesting, but not universally true, I think. Most societies in most >places hve valued poetry to the near exclusion of other forms of writing, >and poetry has thrived in those places. But let's take a repressive place >close to home. Cuba experienced an explosion of poetry in the late 30s, >ending in the late 60s when the current regime decided to crack down on >writers and homosexuals. In that period there was little to no censorship. >The repression that began in earnest with the Padilla case in I think 1968 >had a negative effect on a generation of poets, altho there continued to be >a stream of interesting work. In the last decade a new generation of poets, >born during or after the revolution, has reacted to repression in >interesting ways and begun to write pretty wonderful stuff. > >Worth remembering the burst of creative energy in the early years following >the Bolshevik revolution in the former USSR. It was that burst of energy, I >think, that carried poetry and those poets who managed to survive the >horrors that followed for the next 30 odd years until that generation was >gone. > >Nobody, as far as I remember, threatened Whitman or Dickenson, or much >later Olson or Creeley, with anything more severe than being ignored, and >the work thrived. > >I think you may mean that when a regime that exercises censorship but also >heavily underwrites the publication of poetry fails poetry has to struggle. >But I suspect that has more to do with the loss of funding than the loss of >fear. > >Mark > >At 09:06 PM 3/7/2001 +0000, Peter Howard wrote: >>Poetry needs censorship to thrive. In societies where poetry is >>censored, people read it avidly; it becomes influential. Of course, one >>of the changes it tries to bring about is its own de-censorship, and >>when that's achieved, poetry loses its influence. It wanes to a minority >>interest, derided by most of those who don't ignore it. >> >>Censoring poetry is a foolish action for those who want to suppress its >>influence. If you really want to render it ineffective, pour money into >>subsidising magazines that would otherwise be unable to afford to >>publish it, and organisations that do their utmost to promote it. Make >>sure that anyone who can string two words together has the opportunity >>to have their poetry published in some form or other. >> >>Poetry grows best in the dark. If you want yours to be effective, go >>somewhere it's forbidden, where if you're caught with it you might get >>your hands broken, or be locked up and have to write on soap. Somewhere >>you'll live in the shadows and might disappear. And be prepared to take >>the risk. >> >>That's the easy way. The hard way is to remain where poetry is >>permitted. And try to make it have an effect. >> >> >> >>-- >>Peter >> >>http://www.hphoward.demon.co.uk/poetry/ >> >> > >