PETER:
i'm not _just_ talking abt the appropriation of a text, or the way a thing in the world -- a cultural object -- might be instrumentalized and thrown into the service of an agency (or force) contrary to what the object's maker desired. what i'm talking about here -- and what excited me most about Sean's question, which was a question and not a statement -- was the attention given to historical determinations and ideology in the large sense, common sense, the suggestion (and, in my case, the unswerving conviction) that these can undermine or reroute the never-more-than apparent legibility of a work and, naturally, any intention a poet might have. i mean, cliches are handy here: admirable intentions poorly executed pave the road to the gulag, right?
as for my articulation of these comments w/ Armitage and the Center for Working Class Studies in Ohio -- well, these comments might seem a little disconnected, but i was thinking abt Katie Wales wonderful bk Northern English (2004), which carefully parses out the historical determinations that subordinate Northern English to other Englishes in a British context. Wales' is a socio-linguist and presumably unfamiliar with contemporary poetry outside, say, Bloodaxe, Carcanet, Faber &c. anyhow, in my comment i was thinking about how for her Armitage stood in as representative of a Northern writer and i just thought when i first read her use of Armitage, well i thought, wow, how might giving an ear to someone like Barry MacSweeney instead of Armitage shift the terms of her argument. i'd have to work thru this further, but i do believe this is connected to the question Sean posed in his last msg.
rich ...
........richard owens
810 richmond ave
buffalo NY 14222-1167
damn the caesars, the journal
damn the caesars, the blog
--- On Mon, 2/22/10, Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Response to my criticisms of Armitage's poetry
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, February 22, 2010, 1:05 PM
I don't see that any Mogul's use of a poem or song suggests or shows anything about it whatsoever. Do we think we can tie up both liminal and subliminal consumption so that a text would be cast-iron protected against adoption by any political agency we happen not to like? Wouldn't that be one of the most boring texts ever written? Shakespeare's texts have been used for every rotten purpose under the sun.
In some parts of the British academy the advanced study of poetry is devoted exclusively to this kind of undermining of an author's credibility: attention is focussed exclusively on a presumed undertext, and I think authors have a perfect right to be resentful of this pseudo-psychoanalytic intervention into their intentions and their ethos, as much as to the use of their poems by Tesco or whoever, in both cases "for purposes for which the product was not intended".
It's surely no use unless you can be absolutely specific as to exactly what is there that lends the text to abuses. It's no use talking about somethings. We need to know what they are, how they are there, how they work, rather than a subjective apprehension of mistrust back-read from Bush. In other words you need a linguistic psychology, and as far as I can see there isn't one, just a naïve assumption that if very-nasty-people wave a flag there must be something wrong with the textile of which it's made.
How, then, would we feel about the Marseillaise? "We will chop our enemies to bits..." etc. where an aggression very clearly is there on the surface? If we like France in some way, must we then assume that contrary, benign things must be there underneath?
Myself, I think the so-called surface is the only part that matters.
The USA is an amazing place, geographically, logistically, demotically and in many other ways. I'm sure Whitman must have been used for very dubious purposes many times, but he's still there, and can be defended against it all, and I'm sure if I were an American writer I'd want to shout USA-songs in some way or other.
Pr
On 22 Feb 2010, at 15:23, richard owens wrote:
coming to this late, but following the conversation as it's unfolded. struck now however by Sean's stunningly clear question, which i think bears repeating:
"but are these 'misreadings', or just the cynical use of elements that are there, no matter how unconsciously on the part of the author? whatever the actual lyrics of Springsteen's song, the punching-the-air triumphalism of the chorus easily lends itself to the manipulation of patriotism that a Reagan, or a Bush, needs in order to survive."
there's a certain _pleasure_ to be had in Armitage -- as there is, in a US context, Carl Sandburg or Philip Levine or (the gods forgive me) even Oppen -- but there's something fundamentally destructive in this pleasure, a violence that's hard to account for that's connected to, as Sean says, "elements that are there," elements embedded as it were not just in the manner of saying but also in the information delivered through this saying. not sure, but it might be useful to return to the debate between Duncan and Levertov re political poetry -- but the question isn't reducible to some sort of vulgar form/content split. a sort of overdetermined complex within which the elements of a thing (a song or poem) are fused -- i'm thinking both in terms of, say, scale (i.e. the identification of -- what was it -- maybe the Dorian scale w/ martial music) and, in Springsteen's case a critique of war shot through the figure of the nation.
here we have the Center for Working Class Studies located in Ohio, like the lungs of the rust belt. the Center has this potential to do amazing work but, on the terrain of cultural analysis, it persistently fails in these incredibly heartbreaking ways precisely because of its inability to adequately respond to the question Sean's asking -- as tho working people were incapable of thinking such a question (such a concern would probably be dismissed as disengaged). anyhow, this question of Sean's seems, at least for me, to be the center of the disagreement regarding Armitage.
........richard owens
810 richmond ave
buffalo NY 14222-1167
damn the caesars, the journal
damn the caesars, the blog
--- On Mon, 2/22/10, Sean Bonney <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Sean Bonney <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Response to my criticisms of Armitage's poetry
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, February 22, 2010, 9:42 AM
yes. Springsteen was annoyed about that, understandably. and then there was Stalin's use of Mayakovsky.
but are these 'misreadings', or just the cynical use of elements that are there, no matter how unconsciously on the part of the author? whatever the actual lyrics of Springsteen's song, the punching-the-air triumphalism of the chorus easily lends itself to the manipulation of patriotism that a Reagan, or a Bush, needs in order to survive.
would it be possible to make a political poem, song, artwork that was completely un-usable by its enemies? as in Benjamin's claim that his art-work essay was 'useless for the purposes of fascism'. is anything unrecuperable?
http://abandonedbuildings.blogspot.com/
--- On Mon, 22/2/10, Hampson, R <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Hampson, R <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Response to my criticisms of Armitage's poetry
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, 22 February, 2010, 10:57
One example of this would be the Republicans' use of Springsteen's Born in the USA as a celebratory anthem.
Have we lost the idea of a misreading?
Robert
