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> On 1/19/06, Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > re Tim's remarks-- > > > > As little as a decade ago "postmodern" was something you claimed to be in > > order to get published, get read, and get onto college curricula. > > "Martians", Paul Muldoon, John Ashbery, JH Prynne, CA Duffy, me, you, etc > > etc were all claimed for postmodernism (not necessarily by the poets > > themselves). Now it's a category into which you put poets in order to stop > > them being published and read and prevent them getting onto college > > curricula. I think this is what "The Line of Contemporary Poetry" > > conference is all about. > > from http://www.poetryconference.org.uk/contents/aims_objectives.htm: > > The primary aim of the conference is to stimulate academics to engage > with and write papers on British and Irish contemporary poetry written > originally in English. In order to encourage consideration of issues > of practice, there will also be readings and lectures by leading > poets. The aims of the conference are in line with the extract from an > interview with the late Michael Donaghy. > > The conference will provide an environment for the exchange and > consideration of ideas. It is intended to promote grounded, literate > academic criticism, and serious dialogue between poets, critics and > the academy. > > From an interview with the late Michael Donaghy: > > 'The poetry I value makes use of the various musics, forms and > narrative structures that are natural to our speech, however unusually > they might manifest themselves. It also acknowledges the primacy of > linguistic sense - even if that sense is hidden, or strange, or up for > subversion. Most especially, we can read in the orientation of its > spirit a particular relationship with the literal or imaginative > truth. So it embodies the fact that poems are written by people, and > their desire to communicate the truth - the deepest truth of which > they have an inkling - at the sophisticated limit of their > comprehensible speech. (By the way, this is why we have to safeguard > the literary study of such poetry, since it is exclusively concerned > with poetry's success or failure in its own terms - which necessarily > include sense.) It is writing on the side of humanity, as this is how > we, as human beings, speak, think and, by extension, live.' > > I guess Donaghy's statement precludes most of modernity, surreallism, > apocalypse, postmodern etc etc... > > So what do people call themselves these days in order to get published > etc? Ah. *light-bulb* formalist > > Roger > > > -- > http://www.badstep.net/ > http://www.cb1poetry.org.uk/ >