Dave,
Your post recalled some advice Charles Bernstein offered in 'Lives of the
Toll Takers':
Our new
service orientation
mea
nt
not only changing the way we wrote poems but also diversifying
into new poetry services. Poetic
opportunities
,
however, do not fall into your lap, at least not
very often. You've got to seek them out, and when you find them
you've got to have the knowhow to take advantage
of them.
Keeping up with the new aesthetic environment is an
ongoing process: you can't stand still. Besides, our current fees
barely cover our expenses; any deviation from these levels
would
mean working for nothing. Poetry services provides cost savings
to readers, such
as avoiding hospitalizations (you're less likely
to get in an accident if you're home reading poems), minimizing
wasted time (condesare, and reducing
adverse idea interactions
(studies show higher levels of resistance to double-bind
political programming among those who read 7.7 poems or more each week
.)
Poets deserve compensation
for such services.
For reader unwilling to pay the price
we need to refuse to provide such
service as alliteration,
internal rhymes,
exogamic structure, and
unusual vocabulary.
....
Wystan
-----Original Message-----
From: david.bircumshaw [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, 27 November 2002 4:15 a.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Numbers
>You know I have no idea, David. This year I haven't written much (except in
a collaboration). Other years I'vr managed quite a bit. And look at the
other Douglas, insisting he has nothing to write, but there are all those
past ones, & the new one saying I can't write, but he does (don't you
Douglas?) while listening, again, to Dylan..
Doug<
Actualmente, Doug, I have a lot of sympathy for the 'other Doug' on this.
I've noticed an alarming decline in the quality of my own writing in recent
months, the roots of this are tangled, all sorts of personal stuff seems
involved, as well as a sense of depression about the current cultural
situation, something which manifests itself to me in very direct ways, it's
not an abstract concern. It's as if I've had the stuffing knocked out of me,
it seems as if the antithesis of the creative has won the day. Last night
someone who has just moved into Arts Admin (at the age of 22) was lecturing
me about my lack of marketing nous, poetry is 'a product' she told me and if
I only contacted this number I would be given sound business advice on
furthering my work. I used to hold to the illusion that poetry was a
'protected space' free of the deadly forces of greed and money but now I
feel that it is becoming just another part of the 'system'.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 2:36 PM
Subject: Re: Numbers
>The other day I printed out and read through all the poems I have written
>this year. It hasn't been quite so productive as some years, the grand
total
>was 18 poems, but 4 of them struck me as being in the direction I want. It
>occurred to me too that about 4 to 6 poems a year of which one is
reasonably
>happy is a good 'strike rate' and I wondered what the opinions of others on
>this might be. Obviously I am thinking of an overall average here, lucky
>streaks can happen!
You know I have no idea, David. This year I haven't written much (except in
a collaboration). Other years I'vr managed quite a bit. And look at the
other Douglas, insisting he has nothing to write, but there are all those
past ones, & the new one saying I can't write, but he does (don't you
Douglas?) while listening, again, to Dylan..
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
Is that the flesh made word
or is that the flesh-made word?
Fred Wah
