Candice
'Province' is such a loaded, Roman word. I actually live in Maxima
Caesariensis, which also contains Londinium, that according to the reforms
of Diocletian.
It obviously being in the run-up to the 4th century AD here, and the shore
defences will soon collapse.
Like you, I first saw the link to JK's article on the espresso list, and my
Inbox has noticed the stir it has created, but I thought it a fairly
reasonable piece, if perhaps slightly focussed on Sydney, unsuprisingly
considering the context in which it appeared. That's all.
Otherwise all I can say is to echo the header of this thread. Without the
article, indefinite or not.
cheers
david
----- Original Message -----
From: Candice Ward <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 7:19 AM
Subject: Re: A caution
> David,
>
> Matthew is pretty clearly using "provincial" in the ordinary sense of
> province-related, as opposed to your earlier "I live 100 miles from
London,"
> ergo "I am 'provincial'," but your mention of Carcanet gives me a
> serendipitous opening to answer Jill's earlier query about who I talked to
> in Australia and how tanked up they were when the subject of homey
poetries
> came up. Without being too indiscreet, let me recall that this was the
> spring of 1999, just after Oxford had announced the shutdown of its
> poetry-publishing enterprise, which had included Chris Wallace-Crabbe,
whom
> I overheard telling someone--soberly, in both senses of the term, and with
> evident relief--that Carcanet had just "picked [him] up." (This was in
> Melbourne, where--not incidentally--Collected Works was being evicted from
> its former space, and when I met its owner, Kris Hemensley, he still
hadn't
> located new premises for this illustrious poetry venue.) Earlier that week
> in Hobart, I'd met some of the poets affiliated with Island, which was
then
> between editors and feared to be about to go under for lack of funding--so
> another sober session there. These were very dire times for poetry in both
> those Australian locales, in other words, and such straitened
circumstances
> rarely bring out the charitable side in anyone.
>
> Whether that's a factor in some of the anger that's erupted in this
> discussion of (mainly) the Sydney poetry scene, as reported by JK, I don't
> know. (Jill: no, my sidetrip to Sinny got cancelled, alas!) What I can
tell
> you, though, is that a pair interesting list-threads to do with JK's
article
> developed on two different lists today and spawned parallel discussions
> among some of the same people (namely, Jill and Debbie, here and
> there--"there" being Cassie Lewis's PoetryEspresso list.) Since this was
> where I picked up the link to JK's article myself, having accepted
Cassie's
> posted invitation to check out the archives and discovered yesterday that
> Deb had posted the SMH link (without comment then), I went back to
> PoetryEspresso tonight out of curiosity to see if anything like our own
> "Caution" thread had emerged there in the meantime. Nor was I
disappointed!
>
> As you'll see if you care to peruse the PetryEspresso archives for today
(or
> yesterday, rather, by now), it was THE thread of the day, and mention was
> made of checking out our own archives in turn, so here's the URL again,
for
> anyone who'd like to do some comparison shopping:
>
> http://www.topica.com/lists/PoetryEspresso
>
> Just click on "read this list" in the top right-hand corner when the list
> info. pops up, and it will open up to the (dated) messages (Deb's original
> posting of 2/4 and then the resulting thread of 2/5). Ah, list life--they
> oughta make a movie of it ("It's a Wonderful Link"?)--
>
> Candice
>
>
>
>
> David Bircumshaw wrote:
>
> > I wasn't only thinking of that narrow river 'poetry', Matthew, but I do
> > notice that word 'provincial' re-appears in your message. Now Bloodaxe
and
> > Carcanet might be physically based in the 'provinces' (those places
where
> > the Emperor might visit if there's danger of a rebellion) but in terms
of
> > cultural space they're not, likewise, it would be misleading to consider
the
> > magazines you mention that are based outside London as being 'regional'
,
> > other than I guess Poetry Wales, which is not a criticism of those
> > publications.
>
>
>
> Matthew Francis wrote:
>
> >> I'm not so sure about this, at least as far as poetry is concerned. It
is
> >> certainly true of the wider publishing and media scene (and of course
most
> >> other aspects of British culture). The big publishers are in London,
but
> >> poetry is too commercially insignificant for most of them these days. I
> >> would have thought the majority of poetry books published in the UK are
> > from
> >> provincial firms: Bloodaxe, Carcanet, Seren etc. For magazines, it's
> > Poetry
> >> London, London Magazine, Agenda, Poetry Review against PN Review,
Stand,
> > The
> >> Rialto, Poetry Wales etc - again, London does well but the provinces
don't
> >> seem to be neglected.
>
