Fair enough - but David it was you who brought
up the Edwardian connection with the "current British poetry...scene".
There are a great many more interesting things for all of us to contemplate than
that, though I don't see why it should be alien to a list such as
this.
The topic of Creative Writing's expansion in
universities here, on the US model, isn't exactly engrossing either.
I'm not sure, though, that the descriptor "middle-class" helps much in
understanding it, or just says the obvious: teaching is traditionally described
as a middle-class activity. Plus it solves the money problem. It doesn't mean
that it can't have value.
As a (very) part-time
teacher, I prefer to teach literature rather than writing, but I don't see the
latter option as morally tainted. What worries me most about it is
the potentially exclusionary effect of these degrees - that it becomes
even harder to publish for those outside this institutional loop - with
editorially well-connected poets recommending their graduates. (Again I don't
see those recommendations as tainted - but quite a natural attempt to help young
poets whose work the poet/teachers find promising.) But you'd hope that poetry
would fight free of institutional governance. If this is what's meant by
"middle-class" I wouldn't entirely disagree.
I fear Mark's right that these kind of
degrees "will become the entry ticket". It may even already be the
case.
Jamie
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 3:16
PM
Subject: Re: Never such innocents
again
Yes, Mark, it has been very noticeable here in recent years how the
universities are churning out would-be culture managers who are looking for,
as you say, ' a comfortable middle class work life' out of anything they can
claim to control, even bloody poetry. While the Creative Writing Empires are
after everything: performance poetry, middle-class narrative realism, even the
avant-garde, ersatz poetry springing up everywhere.
Here I've been happily reading side-by-side Isaac Bashevis Singer stories
and David H.Stern's marvellous 'Jewish New Testament' ( 'When they saw how
bold Kefa and Yochanan were, even though they were untrained am-ha'aretz ....
all filled with the Ruach HaKodesh ... in the name of Yeshua from Natzeret') -
marvellous stuff - and I've just got hold of Kirk, Raven and Schofield's 'The
Presocratiic Philosophers' - which I haven't seen since it was republished in
1983 - and the LAST thing I want to do is talk about or even contemplate
something as boring and unstimulating as current British poetry and (even
worse) the British poetry scene.
On 27 July 2010 14:17, Mark Weiss
<[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
In the US the proliferation of writing programs has created the
expectation, not of wealth, but of a comfortable middle class work life and
cossetted retirement for poets. It's difficult to see teaching in these
programs as a sideline--it's become part of the job description of most
poets. Britain appears to be headed in the same direction.
I should
point out that that ezpectation is often unrealistic, given the
overproduction of MFAs. But never fear--within the decade PhDs in Creative
Writing (a terrible phrase) will become the entry
ticket.
Best,
Mark
At 08:57 AM 7/27/2010, you wrote:
David,
Sort of shows why
the term 'Edwardian Poetry' doesn't have much currency: 1901-1910 is such
a short period that poets can be brusquely deemed either too old or too
young to fit. The only book I found by googling the topic is Edward
Millard's and even that uses a prior starting date of 1895 - and
Edward Thomas, whom he includes, only began as a poet around 1914, though
the earlier decade was formative I guess would be the argument. The poets
Millard apparently concentrates on are Newbolt, Masefield, Hardy, Thomas,
Housman, Davidson and Brooke. Doesn't look such a 'vaccuum' to me, and to
speak personally I'd say at least Hardy and Thomas remain compellingly
relevant and I'd think of Hardy as a great deal more "innovative" than
many who'd call themselves that. ('National treasure' is such a slighting
term - it looks down on both Hardy and those who revere him, though that
may not have been your intention.)
Anyway Millard's is not
a grouping that I'd immediately associate with the "murky and mercenary".
For that matter, without further enlightenment from yourself or a higher
power, I wouldn't especially associate this description with contemporary
poetry either. Apart from the laureateship with its royal associations and
its increased pay for the last two incumbents, we're talking general
obscurity and small earnings - and Duffy, if I remember, has donated her
laureate fee to launch an annual prize. I'm not so blinkered that I can't
see all kinds of crassnesses and cliques and jockeying for position within
what you call the "world of professional poetry" but this accusation of
the "mercenary", as well as various sub-Adornian mutterings about
commodification elsewhere, always seem to me comically misplaced. Even the
idea of the "professional" sounds like a misnomer, when the primary
activity is so unlikely to earn anyone a living, or even a significant
fraction of a living. As for sidelines, I may have reservations about the
growth of the creative writing industry, but teaching is work, sometimes
quite hard work, so I don't have any resentments on that score. Literary
journalism, too, is usually very ill-paid. In other words, you'd have to
be a completely daft to enter the unprofessional world of poetry with
aspirations to make money. I don't imagine anything I've said here is news
to you, which is why I can't understand your
perspective.
Jamie
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: David
Bircumshaw
- To: [log in to unmask]
- Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 5:53 AM
- Subject: Re: Never such innocents again
- Jamie
- Hardy was a Victorian writing on into another century, he's a
national treasure even if his poems creak like old country gates but
though a hardy perennial he's hardly relevant to contemporary poetics,
even if a lot of poets and readers hark and hanker back to him.
- I'd like to migrate to another sentence now, as I'm weary of
aspirates.
- Lawrence's and Pound's very early poems (Ezra's 'stale cream puffs'
which received friendly enough notices in the TLS and the very first
issue of Poetry Review) weren't exactly representative of the period
either, except in their weaknesses.
- No, I don't write as if you were a member of the Bullingdon Club and
plesae don't tempt me to :)
- While I wouldn't dare an account of the murky and mercenary (I'm
feeling highly alliteratively literary this morning) world of
professional poetry. To my knowledge there isn't a sociology of
contemporary British poetry written and I doubt, given the secretive
nature of much of it, that it would be possible, without the benefit of
a higher power, to do so.
- On 26 July 2010 19:39, Jamie McKendrick <[log in to unmask] > wrote:
- David,
- Because I'm too ignorant of most Edwardian poetry to offer
a defence of it, I didn't. (Though I was glad to see someone did.) But
there are surely some poets writing then, including Thomas Hardy,
D.H.Lawrence and Ezra Pound (Personae, 1909) that shouldn't be beneath
the regard of a list devoted to contemporary poetics?
- "As for British society", I don't see why you should
presume I hadn't noticed the same things that you have, which is why I
rather resent being addressed as if I'm a member of the Bullingdon
Club myself.
- "As for poets, and the values they reflect," - that
was the part I was once again asking about, but clearly you're under
no obligation to expand on or explain your earlier remark, though I'm
sure you could if you wanted to. My view remains that your Edwardian
analogy regarding poetic practice is an irrelevant one, but I might
have been persuaded otherwise.
- Jamie
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: David Bircumshaw
- To: [log in to unmask]
- Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 6:46 PM
- Subject: Re: Never such innocents again
- Jamie
- when people leap to the defence of Edwardian poetry on what is
supposed to be a list devoted to innovative poetics it's hard to keep
a straight face. As for British society, you may have noticed it's
currently being run by the Bullingdon club. As for poets, and the
values they reflect, I leave that to people's own observations.
