Rather than looking at the social origins of poets
and critics it would help to consider what they write, otherwise
we'd be stuck at the stage of dismissing Orwell because he went to Eton.
Prejudice is not the exclusive property nor a defining feature of the middle
class - used in this way the term merely becomes a blurred category
for everything that is insidious and oppressive, and doesn't so much
challenge a class system, that undoubtedly exists, as
comfortably reconfirm it.
Is the performance poetry scene in
Britain "resoundingly middle class"? I haven't a clue, and I'm not at all
sure what that judgement would ultimately mean. Does the literary establishment
really seem to 'validate' " the cliched performance poem"? I'm not even
convinced that the present British mainstream has such decisively
"anti-modernist tendencies".
Class surely has to concern
questions of power, economic and social. Most poets have precious little
of either, but can certainly allign themselves - or do the opposite - in
relation to the powers that be.
The Arts Council has a certain amount
of power to dispose of funds, to support or not support publishers, festivals,
organizations etc. It seems to me a rather secondary question as to whether the
compilers of the report are all middle class, as they may well be, but it
matters how well they understand the art in question and how that understanding
informs the decisions they make.
Best,
Jamie
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, May 29, 2011 2:24 PM
Subject: Re: Arts Council report on
Contemporary Poetry
Dave,
Like Jamie I don't quite understand what you mean by 'the discussion of
it (poetry)' with regard to the class thing. Both you and me have got
ourselves pounced on on this list in the past for bringing the class question
into things, but in this particular case I don't quite see what your point is.
Of course poetry is dominated by what we used to call the middle classes - the
majority of poets have middle class backgrounds, but at least there is a
minority of us who come originally from working class backgrounds. I doubt
though if we could say the same about publishers and critics. But this is no
different to any other walk of artistic life, which in turn is no different to
any other walk of professional life etc. However, your statement 'English
poetry encodes social exclusion' is..... is what?.... strange?.....OTT? Do you
mean all of it? And do you mean the poetry itself or the means of its creation
and dissemination and validation etc.? The latter I would agree. The former
needs explanation.
You might recall that some time ago on this list I tried to argue about
the strange mix of working class and middle class attitudes that lie behind
the anti-modernist tendencies of the British mainstream, things which have
given rise to the literary establishment's seeming validation of the cliched
performance poem along with a corresponding devaluing of the innovative etc.
If I recall properly I think I talked quite a bit about the function of
inverted snobbery in all this - but it gets very complicated - I don't think
my brain is up to it these days.
Cheers
Tim A.
On 29 May 2011, at 08:26, David Bircumshaw wrote:
I often recall E.M.Forster's witticism about
Meredith's novels being 'the Home Counties posing as the Universe'. More or
less just as often (I have no spurious statistics to offer) I find myself
feeling something similar about modern British poetry AND discussions about
it, although rather than the Home Counties it is rather the voice of a class
which can still probably be called middle but doesn't think of itself as
such. Indeed instead of aspiring to croquet and sherry on the lawn it might
well consider itself 'progressive', and rather than having designs of
ownership on the Universe it merely, modestly, covetously, desires to
be its arbiter. I am afraid too it is just as much a feminine as a
masculine voice.
It is difficult. I love poetry in English. But entwined
in it like a downed constellation, an Ophiucus perhaps, is a meanness of
spirit and exclusion, from Chaucer's verray parfit gentil through
Shakespeare and that churl death to Duffy and a mean time all round, and the
resoundingly middle-class performance poetry scene, it's there. English
poetry encodes social exclusion, and I find myself all too literally
following a Biblical injunction and loving mine enemy. That loves me not.
Enough of that. It sounds merely personal. I don't know if Mark
Weiss is still following this list but he has a lot of observations of how
in the USA the validation by creative writing degree growth is something
akin to a certificate of middle-class-dom. Validation, in effect, if I may
use that word.
A particular memory fuzzily comes to mind: last year or
the year before East Midlands Arts advertised for a relationship manager
(they really did use that phrase). At 35 grand a year. A
spokesman explained it was for someone to 'keep the region's writers in
shape'.
--
David Joseph Bircumshaw
Website
and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/