With this I think it's more a matter that some of the rhetoric of the Left
has become part of a conventional mental kit that has been adopted at
institutional level (in the Arts Council, in libraries for example) and
deployed by careerists. Or something like that. I really could give precise
examples (names) but it wouldn't be a good idea. Would it?
best
dave
On 16 July 2011 19:54, Tim Allen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> On 16 Jul 2011, at 18:33, Jamie McKendrick wrote:
>
> **>**Much in the arts today is openly barbarous. {8} The Left in
> particular, disappointed of change in British society, has made literature
> its rallying point, and tends to look at imaginative writing as
> pamphleteering to achieve its purposes. But poetry in particular eludes
> ready formulation. It demands concentration, the trained ability to read and
> a willingness to entertain new forms and materials.
>
>
> This is where I gave up last time - with no attempt at all, let alone
> any examples, to support this statement about the triumph of barbarism. And
> while I'd agree that poetry may make specific demands on its readers, why
> assume that the "Left" in particular is responsible for an inability to read
> with more subtlety. It's like the guy has some kind of political gripe which
> he hasn't found a way of clarifying.
>
>
> Oh dear, this is a very difficult one. I don't really want to agree with
> what it says but I'm afraid I almost do. The left's general attitude to a
> lot of the poetry I like, for example, is highly influenced by half-baked
> notions of political 'purpose'. This goes right back to the 30's but it
> surfaces every so often, most recently in the mid 90's when some very vague
> ideas about 'the domestic now being the main focus of the political' led to
> any poetry which did not meet certain criteria being labeled as elitist,
> formalist, up its own arse etc. No matter the fact that most of this
> 'elitist formalism' was written by die-hard lefties - if it don't mention
> who's doing the hoovering then it aint real... the fact that such rubbish
> was spouted by future Blairites and literary careerists only adds to the
> frustration of course.
>
> Cheers
>
> Tim A.
>
--
David Joseph Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
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