I think we're in agreement that "conservative" and
"charming" are meant as patronizing - weak-tea indeed - and that 'lyrical"
sandwiched between them really gets thinned down to nothing. (Though in other
contexts the word might still have some force.) But the orignal
blog moves from "British poetry remains conservative, lyrical, and
charming" to "It combines humour and personality. It is stylish, both
urbane and rural. British poetry is a major accomplishment of world culture..."
- So the whole flattened enterprise of British
poetry somehow proudly builds itself up again and can look the world
in the eye.
It all looks pretty meaningless to me, so
perhaps I shouldn't have posted on the subject. I was just surprised David, in
wheeling in the Edwardians, thought there some political acuity to it.
Or maybe he didn't, and I misunderstood even that.
Jamie
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2010 4:17
PM
Subject: Re: "So who are the Young
British Poets?"
I've known a few who definitely lacked charm.
My
quip--it was only that--reflected my sense that these are pretty weak-tea
virtues (as the words are usually used), and they certainly aren't always
what's strived for. Is Pound charming most of the time? What about Wordsworth
circa 1798? Lyrical here I take it doesn't refer to the much-contested lyric
poem, but to musicality. But only to one type of musicality. Is Sean Bonney
lyrical in that sense? (Hi, Sean).
Best,
Mark
At 10:53 AM
7/24/2010, you wrote:
Peter - perhaps I
misunderstood. I took it that there was some disagreement between you and
David about the extent of change since the Edwardians.
I fully
understood, though, that you were trying to get rid of the survey
completely, and didn't think for a moment you were trying to reduce its
scope. It seemed to me that Mark was trying "to whittle it down further" by
agreeing that the poets cited were merely "conservative" and not even
lyrical or charming. I'm sure we're all charming.
Jamie
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Peter Riley
- To: [log in to unmask]
- Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2010 2:59 PM
- Subject: Re: "So who are the Young British Poets?"
- The Edwardians were introduced because of an agreement between me and
the late David Bircumshaw, that the nature of the "poetry scene" as
understood by T Swift hasn't fundamentally changed since early last
century, just as the socio-economic foundation of the society in which it
takes place, hasn't either.
- I wasn't trying to reduce the scope of the survey but to get rid of
the survey completely.
- At a wild guess 70 percent of the population of this country write or
have written, poetry. If you must conduct a survey of the activity that's
the kind of statistic you need to deal with, rather than 50-odd poets who
happen to be in the journals that you read.
- And by the way I'm convinced that I'm utterly charming.
- Pr
- On 23 Jul 2010, at 19:46, Jamie McKendrick wrote:
- This kind of statement comes across as an attempt to
flatten the world so the speaker stands out in high relief - as not
charming, not lyric (I suppose these are meant as light-weight virtues)
but most off all not conservative.
- Though in its original context it's just an aside in a
discussion of recent poetry, I can't really work out why anyone would want
to endorse it, let alone whittle it down even further.
- Glad to come across a defence of the Edwardians, even if they
have no descriptive relevance here in the first place.
- Jamie
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Peter Riley
- To: [log in to unmask]
- Sent: Friday, July 23, 2010 1:00 PM
- Subject: Re: "So who are the Young British Poets?"
- The point is I think, that because of that, if you assume the
right to produce a survey of the poetry scene (or the arrogance
to declare the future "canon") it will always look like that, at any
time. It will always end "British poetry remains conservative, lyrical
and charming" because that is what (leaving aside grades of lyric and
charm) 90 percent of poets always do. I'm sure I've read surveys just
like that dating from the 1920s, either not mentioning poets like Eliot,
Pound, MacDiarmid, Rosenberg.... or treating them as curiosities,
and ending "British poetry remains conservative, lyrical and charming".
Probably there were surveys being written in 1820 not mentioning Blake
or Shelley, and ending "British poetry remains conservative, lyrical,
and charming". I'm sure Zhdanov wrote surveys saying "Russian
poetry remains exactly what I tell it to remain and will for
ever."
- Actually I like quite a lot of pieces by those Edwardian or Georgian
vacuum-cleaners: Belloc, Masefield, Gibson, Binyon, etc., they were
capable of real, penetrative, lyric and charm, or professional skill in
narrative poems (now lost).
- And of course a survey ending "British poetry remains avant-garde,
anti-lyrical and vomit-making" would be just as silly. Surveys are a
form of marketing.
- Pr
- On 22 Jul 2010, at 22:25, David Bircumshaw wrote:
- No, Peter, of course it hasn't, and the writings of you and others
stands, but the basic structures underpinning British society haven't
changed at all in that time, despite appearances, so its poetry easily
reverts into something that resembles a dry-cleaned version of the
Edwardian poetic vaccuum of twice fifty years ago.
- best
- dave
- On 22 July 2010 21:30, Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
- "British poetry remains conservative, lyrical, and
charming."
- So the work of the last fifty years has been a complete waste of
time?
- pR
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