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Ps Roger As for God is dead. Linguistically, culturally, psychologically, no: a visit to any mosque or evangelical church will demonstrate that to you. Equally you can visit Gillian K.Ferguson's poem. As far as rational, scientific discourse is concerned, yes. Richard Dawkins will explain that to anyone who cares to listen. But people, even Richard Dawkins, being primates, still have the instincts to subordinate or dominate. You can take a line of sophistication too, in that as well as meaning Magistrate or Top-Person the name of God also just means 'to be' and I guess most of us believe we exist at least as much as we doubt it. Even if the sum-total of all energy in the Universe is really Zero. As the Author, she's quietly changing her name to The Celebrity. As that nice Catalan poet said to me, you have to advertise nowadays if you want to become someone. And there was poor me thinking I was someone to start with, at least just as much as I'm a no-one. Best Dave 2008/5/12 David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>: > Roger > > I liked Larkin's description of railway lines as seen from the end of > a station platform. I liked it because I worked on the railways for a > decade. > I not long ago too posted a poem here which I hope made clear my sense > of distance from the Larkinesque. But, for the record, I have no doubt > about Larkin's disdain for the working class, or his > anti-intellectualism. > But it doesn't mean I trust the alleged avant-garde either. Or, > particularly, Perloff's insistence that you can overlook the fascism > in writers like Pound. > At the moment though I'm struggling to come to terms with the fact > that last Friday we unwittingly provided played hosts to the local > Serbian Chetnik poetry appreciation society. And that the poet who > read was: > > a) a self-described European poet writing in English. > > b) published by Salt > > c) an admirer of Pound who used traditional forms so predictable I > could see the following rhyme before the next line began. At various > points he described himself as English, at others as Jewish, he > repeatedly mentioned to the Serb visitors that he thought that the > Allies should have supported the Royalists in WWWII, that the Muslims > in Bosnia and Kossovo were ethnically Serb, that he hated current > English poetry. > > d) a symbolist, a mythicist, who compared himself to Yeats > > while > > e) he treated us like servants, teaches at Cambridge, made nearly 600 > quid for an hour and a bit reading > > f) that the audience loved it all, apart it seemed from me and the > only other person present who actually was working-class. One of our > members said to me on the way out 'I bet your really enjoyed having an > avant-garde poet here tonight'. I just said 'Do you think so?' I was > otherwise speechless. He had my closest friend selling his books for > him on the break, I can't even talk to her about the horror the > evening inspired in me. We had a poet who proclaims a belief in peace, > and ethnic determination, who allies himself somehow with the > avant-garde while writing poetry so mechanically predictable it could > be done by software. He has won prizes a-plenty. Salt publish him. > Cambridge nurtures him. The Chetnik's friend. Who says he's Jew, and > proud to be English and to have met Ezra Pound in the 1960s. > > Man, it did my head in. I haven't had a drink in seven months but I > almost went and got pissed afterwards. I felt +that+ close to it. > > > > > 2008/5/12 Roger Day <[log in to unmask]>: > > > > A question for you, Dave. Where are you going with this? Pace your > > comments about knowing about those who or what our ancestors are > > about, and I agree with it, however your comments ascend at times into > > polemic and leaps of logic such as the final sentence. I wonder what > > lies behind this single-minded pursuit? What is it Nietsche said? If > > you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you? But > > then, as much as fashionable people today want to ignore it, someone > > has said that god is dead. Bury the idea, discredit the authors. It's > > there, just as Alan Moore laid the tombstone for Superman. > > > > I note your favorable comments about Larkin and the disconnect you > > made between his letters and his poetry. If anything, Larkin > > condescended and looked down that long, dour nose in his poetry, > > hating those post-war consumers. The hatred for fancy European > > theorists, the general distaste for the working-class shared by a lot > > of the working-class "who made good." A while, before I was ill, I > > used to catch myself burying my past, showing a Larkinesque disdain > > for the working class. I've changed for the better I hope. I wonder > > even now if some undergraduate is cementing Larkins' pornography with > > his poetics ah, he mysogyny of it all. > > > > The duchamp readymade has a long lineage in the art-world, it is much > > mocked by the right-wing press. However, as much as people (the Daily > > Mail, say) deride such Duchampean or Picabian japes, we have to deal > > with it; it is there, people, well, me included make these things. > > It's not going away, as much as you'd like it to. Engaging with it > > rather than denying it would seem to be a more fruitful option but to > > each their own. > > > > Roger > > > > > > > > On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 8:13 AM, David Bircumshaw > > <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > Thanks for posting that link, Max. > > > > > > I think it worth observing that the piece reminds me that the roots of > > > English language modernism are in the culturally segregated > > > aestheticism of the 1890s - this is where the looking-down superiority > > > of Pound, Eliot and Stevens originates, and that the fetish of > > > 'experiment' divorced from content reinforces that. > > > > > > 2008/5/11 Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>: > > > > > > > > > > On 12/5/08 3:45 AM, "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > > > > > >> And an intriguing wandering it is, Christopher. I don't pretend to > > > >> 'get' it all yet, or at least so far as to respond coherently, but I > > > >> think I tend to agree with you. I wonder about those of us who do find > > > >> ourselves working the fragment & the non-narrative (at least in some > > > >> ways) while also feeling that we do need to remember, or to do what > > > >> battle we can with 'historical amnesia' (wonderfully examined, in one > > > >> area, in a piece by Marilynne Robinson in the latest Harper's). I > > > >> admire the use of narrative as a means, but it's not my means... > > > >> > > > >> Doug > > > > > > > > Robinson's Harper's essay: > > > > > > > > http://www.ephblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/harpersmagazine-2008-05-00 > > > > 82007.pdf > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > 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 > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/ > > "She went out with her paint box, paints the chapel blue > > She went out with her matches, torched the car-wash too" > > The Go-Betweens > > > > > > -- > > > 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