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I heard Paul Brown is now running an 'art' bookshop in Brighton. He's not writing or publishing poetry as far as I know. Ian >From: John Muckle <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: John Muckle <[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Paul Brown, neglectorino >Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 13:48:22 +0100 > >One poet who has disappeared from my own generation is Paul Brown. He wrote >some sharp stuff and also helped co-publish a first book by Ian Davidson >and myself (among many other things, including Tom Raworth) in his Actual >Size imprint. > > >Day's damp has shuffled bent of back into the >cortex. Pour another High'n'Dry on >ice and tonic it. Slice the lemon like >a party hack. Knife run on surfaces > >Each leaves each no more than hinting. The ice >at the bottom of the tumbler. There should >have been a something, never sure what. There >where the lemon's sucked the gin out of us. > >(from De Rebus, in The New British Poetry, Paladin 1988) > > >If you believe we can totally rely on the opinions of helpful elders (or >contemporaries or the next generation)to tell us what's good and how to >like it, you might like to recall Wordsworth's comment om Shelley's >Alastor: "There is not a line of poetry in it." Which at least makes >reading a journey of discovery. > >On Kenneth Koch: his I Never Told Anybody: Teaching Poetry in a Nursing >Home is a unique and valuable book on poetry, all about taking down the >last words of elderly working-class people, that has little to do with >where we might place him or what we might enjoy in his own work. > >As for things that last for centuries - a few John Clare poems soon set off >my group of working-class pensioners to produce some Clare-like poems of >their own about insects, wagtails etc. People were so very right to admire >his directness and vividness of perception and expression: one of those >readers who wore out that pub copy of The Seasons. > >Assez! > >John _________________________________________________________________ Txt a lot? Get Messenger FREE on your mobile. https://livemessenger.mobile.uk.msn.com/