there are good lines and good lines
sorry to disagree
i really am not stalking you as you have sometimes thought
but having once published Gavin and once dedicated a poem to him, i have to say i dont recognise him in Duncan's analysis
He's a sharp critic potentially - I mean Duncan - but he likes to individuate himself by character assassinating others instead of sticking to a text or a point
he churns this kind of crap out by the metre
clearly and hence are connectives for duncan - or sometimes a kind of cladding to hide the gaps in his thought
nb _that kind of person_, _such people_
how does he *know what happens when you refine an argument? apart from hearsay
i thought he might have grown up - i remember him advising someone once not to waste their time on donne because donne believed in god
spirituality is a thing he tilts at in his tilted world, but he doesnt seem too happy in the physical world either
L
-----Original Message-----
From: Dominic Fox <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 10:33 PM
Subject: Re: Poetry and spiritualisation
There's spirituality and spirituality. I don't go for the
luxuriating-in-the-divine-plenitude stuff, particularly, because it
strikes me as offering a kind of false consolation (or "cheap grace",
to borrow a phrase). But you can have my George Herbert when you pry
it out of my cold, dead fingertips.
Anything remotely New Age makes me barf. Andrew Duncan has a good line
in a piece on Gavin Selerie:
"Clearly, if the author is associating with people who believe in
fortune telling, it would be rather rude of him to disbelieve in this
and cognate brands of addle-pated nonsense. Hence use of the
irrational is a kind of stalking-horse. If you don't trust the
testimony of the people with you, you are authoritarian and
centralising in mentality. It's the kind of attitude test by which
that kind of person decided whether you were acceptable as a
companion."
There is simply no point at all in arguing with such people, since the
more carefully you refine your argument, and the more forcefully you
press it, the more of an utter bastard they think you are just for
thinking and talking in what they perceive to be an inhumanly cold and
unyieldingly vindictive fashion. Even attempting to deflect the claims
pressed upon one ("Swallow this. It's good for you") with what one
hopes are urbane and witty deflationary gestures is likely to lead to
sour looks and accusations of harbouring a sarcastic and disrespectful
attitude.
So there is a certain "spirituality" in poetry, also, which is really
there to keep the disputatious at bay, to create a sort of safe space
within the poem for cozy addle-patedness. It's a warding charm against
the always potentially divisive exercise of intellect, and where you
see that charm being brandished it's a pretty sure bet that some
species of complaisant anti-intellectualism is not far behind.
Dominic
