MAIREAD:
yes, you're absolutely right -- there does seem to be a split which cordons off Irish poets on some level & it's difficult (at least for me) to know why this is. i've been on a bit of a search for innovative writing from Ireland, & the key figures for me have been Simon Cutts (who seems more strongly connected to US & UK poets than Irish poets), trevor joyce, Geoffrey Squires & Catherine Walsh -- perhaps John Montague.
Tony Frazer at Shearsman has been attentive to work that might be framed as innovative Irish poetry -- he having brought out the last installment of Maurice Scully's ongoing project Things That Happen & some work by Catherine Walsh.
But there are two concerns i have regarding innovative Irish poetry & the notion of innovation in general. first i'm wondering why it's so difficult to get a sense of an avant-garde or innovative tradition/community in Ireland -- at least from the outside looking in. &
this might have a lot to do with exclusion. it also may have something to do with cohesion, social formations, etc -- that is, i haven't located a community of poets in Ireland comparable to the Barque folks (Ladkin, Sutherland, Brady, Manson, Purves, Fyttche) or Yt Communications (Bonney, Kruk, Robinson).
are there enclaves of innovation in Ireland that anyone reading this might point us to?
my second concern involves the transposition of tradition/innovation & mainstream/non-mainstream. while Prynne is undoubtedly an innovative poet, his position at Cambridge, the critical attention his work has received, the attention the TLS &c have given him & the fact that his work is brought out through publishers like Bloodaxe seems to suggest that he has a mainstream -- or at least a highly visible -- presence. & in many ways innovation & experimental practices have become traditions unto themselves, from Mallarme & Duchamp &c forward.
which is to say, it seems crucial that the terms of such a split be carefully reconsidered.
(plus i'm _always_ concerned about the relation of innovation & the new to the fetish commodity. i've always a sinking feeling that innovation, poetic or technological or other, is somehow bound up with commodity production & the free market's interminable lust for the new -- the need to make anything new being itself old.)
but i make these claims without having heard Carrie Etter's talk! would it be possible to get a copy of her talk?
rich...
........richard owens
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