 |
 |
Kasper Having a gang-war installed without invitation in my head is how the British poetry scene makes me feel. My own position is that of someone who, though having had a couple of books published, and helping to promote readings and workshops, doesn't earn any income from poetry nor aspires to, nor teaches literature professionally. My involvement with poetry, which has been very extensive over several decades, is that of someone who does it because I like the stuff. I've met many of the people on both sides of the gang-wars and like people everywhere they're most ok exactly when they're not (!). But I find myself almost in a mental state of paranoid mistrust when comes to any polemics, articles, anthologies, pictures, representations of current British poetry that have, as it were, 'status'. For instance, I know who the representative of 'ordinary readers' Astley quotes is and I know there I'm reading the voice of yet another self-seeking clique. I guess it doesn't do to get to know too much about any human social group: it makes you just want to walk away in despair. When poetry is at a level of discussion groups like this, or local groups of people wgho just like writing, it's fine, but when it comes to 'literary scene', oh man. Best Dave 2008/5/28 kasper salonen <[log in to unmask]>: > this looks like an interesting read at first, but soon dissolves into an > anti-polemicist polemic. which is what gets me. > > I find myself agreeing in principle, vaguely, with some of Astley's points > on elitism; but at the same time I agree, for instance, with the reviewers > of those three books (in section 22) talking about the covers -- nauseating. > (for one thing, why is Daisy Goodwin's name so prominent on the cover of the > middle one if she's just edited it? seems like trick lighting, to make her > seem like an Author) > > and I actually DO think there's a difference between "selling and selling > out" -- I've not yet come to grips with promoting poetry really, and I can > certainly see the value & necessity of being somewhat inclusive rather than > extremely exclusive; as long as there's an integrity to the writing itself > that has less to do with readers than Astley would like & absolutely nothing > to do with making the poetry sell. > > oh shucks. > I wonder why there's always such a fracas about poetry & its readers, who > they should or shouldn't be. people who like poetry will read it! and since > new readers are likely to start from classics anyway, what's the whole SELL > IT deal about exactly? is there some new breed of poetry that is gasping to > be born, a kind of 'current-only' movement that wants new readers to start > with the writing of their own age? I can't make it out. that's the thing > about gangwars, probably; the causes & motivations soon distort or vanish. > but hey I don't know what I'm talking about :) > > KS > > 2008/5/28 David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>: > >> Here's a good example of one side of the gang-warfare that discussion >> of current British poetry often amounts to. I'm not posting this link >> in a simple mood of look at this and descry it as the other faction >> implied in the piece is just as polemic. >> >> As someone once said, a plague on both ... >> >> http://www.stanzapoetry.org/stanza06_archive/lecture.htm >> >> -- >> David Bircumshaw >> Website and A Chide's Alphabet >> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/ >> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html >> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk >> > -- David Bircumshaw Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/ The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk