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Ah, Roger, but I think it does, it does. What I'm saying is that the consciousness and language of the poems, the precision and the ambivalence about human nature, the manipulation of the linguistic power of certain words and the way they're put together, are all of a piece with the plays. I'd engage in more extended debate, but all I could do, really, is to point to the plays and poetry themselves; the similarities are so obvious that I'd feel foolish and condescending in trying to point them out. Roger Day wrote: > Emphatically agreed. Only wish that Pinter wanted his poetry to attain > the art of his plays. > > Roger > > On 12/8/05, George Hunka <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> Oh, no, I certainly didn't mean a "minority" on this list, but certainly >> a "minority" in the wider cultural sphere, at least among the press. >> Remember, our ideologically-driven, Rupert-Murdoch-funded "Fox News" has >> a far larger audience here in the States than CNN, and I doubt that >> they'll be saying kind things about Pinter. And when Pinter won the >> Nobel, there was a lot of handwringing that he'd received it for his >> political views (which columnists tended to revile) and not his body of >> work (which columnists tended to praise), as if it could be so easily >> divided up. Yesterday's speech won't change this. >> >> MJ Walker wrote: >> >>> Breaking an inclination to silence, here - to say that makes a >>> minority of at least two, George. This was kicking against the pricks >>> with an unconquered flame. One can get too prissy about "art". >>> Martin >>> >>> George Hunka wrote: >>> >>> >>>> I'm going to have to take the minority view, apparently, when I >>>> suggest that Pinter's poetry and political essays are just as much a >>>> part of Pinter's body of work as the plays, demonstrably and >>>> identifiably so. A reader needs only look at an early play like "The >>>> Dumb Waiter" (1957) and compare the rhythm, imagery and versification >>>> of its dialogue to poems like "American Football" and "Death"; only >>>> look at the cruelty of Goldberg and McCann in "The Birthday Party" >>>> (1957) and compare it to the cruelty of Bush and Blair as >>>> characterized in the Nobel speech yesterday. The poems stand a closer >>>> look. >>>> >>>> There's a sense in which Pinter's being disingenuous when he makes >>>> the separation between "writer" and "citizen"; I think he may be >>>> doing so as a modest defense of his early, seemingly more personal >>>> and hermetic plays. In any case, it's true that the perspective of >>>> any citizen as he or she, say, reads a newspaper, is a different >>>> perspective than that of a poet when he or she sits down in front of >>>> a blank piece of paper. These perspectives inform each other, >>>> however, as they must, emerging from the same pair of eyes, from the >>>> same mind, from the same heart. Some critic (it may have been Pinter >>>> himself) once described his plays as contemplating "the weasel under >>>> the cocktail cabinet"; these same weasels, Pinter appears to be >>>> saying, have now gained occupancy of the White House and 10 Downing >>>> Street. This realization, perhaps, is what changed his heart and his >>>> pen after 1980, when Reagan and Thatcher came to power. >>>> >>>> A good summation, by the way, in today's UK Guardian from Michael >>>> Billington. Billington closes with: >>>> >>>> "One columnist predicted, before the event, that we were due for a >>>> Pinter rant. But this was not a rant in the sense of a bombastic >>>> declaration. This was a man delivering an attack on American foreign >>>> policy, and Britain's subscription to it, with a controlled anger and >>>> a deadly irony. And, paradoxically, it reminded us why Pinter is such >>>> a formidable dramatist. He used every weapon in his theatrical >>>> technique to reinforce his message. And, by the end, it was as if >>>> Pinter himself had been physically recharged by the moral duty to >>>> express his innermost feelings." >>>> >>>> Whole thing here: >>>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1662115,00.html >>>> >>>> Best wishes, and oddly recharged myself after listening to this speech, >>>> George >>>> >>>> Dominic Fox wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> I wouldn't agree that the "writer" and "citizen" occupy two separate >>>>> ontological realms. And in any case I think he has them the wrong way >>>>> round. Art makes truths that are *less* complex than reality. What he >>>>> is doing in standing up for what he thinks is right is producing a >>>>> truth. Most people would recognise that his denunciations of Bush and >>>>> Blair are simplifications of reality, rhetorical triangulations. They >>>>> may allow a truth to be grasped, but they are art-works as much as >>>>> they are acts of citizenship. There isn't that much of a difference >>>>> between the acceptance speech and the poems. There is quite a >>>>> difference, and it is a difference in terms of art, between both and >>>>> the plays. >>>>> >>>>> Dominic >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >> -- >> >> George Hunka >> [log in to unmask] >> http://www.ghunka.com >> >> > > > -- > http://www.badstep.net/ > http://www.cb1poetry.org.uk/ > > > -- George Hunka [log in to unmask] http://www.ghunka.com