Rupert -- I wasn't championing the cause of academic study of "innovative poetry" I was merely saying what I believe to be the purpose of the new magazine.
Of course there are problems with such a "discipline", the biggest one being how to identify the subject -- innovative poetry. One obvious way would be to locate some contrasting poetry which isn't innovative but that can be extremely difficult because some poetry is innovative in one way and some in another and actually, most poetry definitely has something "new" about it. In fact I don't think they do this . (I might be wrong here but I don't think that hostile analysis of non-innovative poetry is normally part of the run of things). What you do is select a quite small number of young-ish poets and say "These are the innovative poets, these are what we study, the rest can go hang." And having dipped my nose into these areas from time to time it I get the impression that in all the I.P. pockets all over the country they are selecting more-or-less the same few poets, except in a certain south-easterly direction where they select a different and smaller group. And other regional variants. I think that the principal qualifying factor is a hostility to the entire culture we inhabit manifested through a belief that "language" is at the heart of the problem, by adherence to the conclusions of linguistic philosophy, stated or implied. So the innovative is defined not so much against conservative poetry as against a general cultural sense of stagnation and normative language use.
I think it is also undeniably true that some of the poets selected at University A are probably teaching at University B, which is an inevitable result of the demand for a shared cultural agenda which will produce the right kind of innovative poetry.
I don't think there's anything wrong with this (kind of) study as such. What I find worrying about it is the creation of a selective history in exactly the way that English departments have always done -- "This is what we study because this is what is important." People like Leavis and Davie can be seen in the same way constructing a history, or a tradition of contemporary poetry of which they are the guardians (and which now look like fairly ramshackle affairs with moments of brilliant perception). Treatment of pre-C20 lit. has been just the same. You end up with a "canon" as they call it. The possibility of a shifted climate in which we escape from canons doesn't really seem to enter into it, and yet that seems to be what is happening in changing patterns of publication and consumption of new poetry at present.
So, again, a valuable move towards the future is attenuated by the amount of freight it is willing to carry with it (and quite possibly encumbered with the amount of extra-poetical baggage it loads itself with). Well, it could be so, in certain hands.
PR
On 19 Oct 2009, at 23:19, rupert mallin wrote:
Sorry Peter, but how do you teach innovative poetry as opposed to teaching poetry? Also, is 'Innovative Poetry' now an "established and respectable academic speciality" in this country? Mmm, tell that to the University of East Anglia -- but also tell it to me!
I don't understand how "respectable" and "innovative" can live in the same sentence. That is, I'm wondering which comes first here - the respectabllity or the innovation? I'm all for universities but they are NOT centres for poetic or artistic innovation. Surely, innovations in art and poetry have come about historically when students and academic staff have fused with the society beyond. These days, while government directives and the universities themselves claim a plurality of purpose and record student numbers, ironically, what I see are teaching practices narrowing sharply.
So I applaud Liz for actually questioning the ground here - because it is not fixed, nor is the pole of the academic as steady as it appears here.
Rupert
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry launch at Birkbeck (Weds 21st October 2009)
I think what it's about is an insistence that the teaching and study of "Innovative Poetry" is now an established and respectable academic speciality in this country.
PRi
On 19 Oct 2009, at 16:03, Liz Kirby wrote:
Anyone who isn't already on a payroll somewhere invited? Or is this really just the Journal of British And Irish Innovative Academics (Poetry).....
I suppose people who dont have the sanction of an academic institution and a steady income cant really be innovative?
Just wondering.
Liz
2009/10/19 Anthony Levings
<[log in to unmask]>A quick reminder that this Wednesday (21st October 2009) is the Birkbeck
launch for the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry. Staring at
7:30 pm. Room B29, Birkbeck Main Building, Malet St., London WC1E 7HX
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/readings/news/journallaunch
Speakers:
Caroline Bergvall, Poet and performer, Arts and Humanities Research Council
Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Southampton
Andrea Brady, Poet, Lecturer, Department of English, Queen Mary College
Robert Hampson, Poet, Professor, Department of English, Royal Holloway
Scott Thurston and Robert Sheppard, Editors, Journal of Innovative British
and Irish Poetry
Followed by discussion and drinks.
All Welcome.
Anthony Levings, Managing Editor
Gylphi Limited, http://www.gylphi.co.uk
* Apologies for cross-posting *