Jamie
ALl I want to add really, is that I'm very glad of people like Aingeal
Clare who will spread their critical attention across boundaries and
so might promote a healing of meaningless rifts (such as the Hybrid
anthology failed to). That is what I would like to do, in my way. When
it apparently involves praising as sharp satire quoted lines which
seem to me like infantile dribble, I'm taken by surprise, (and in this
case very amused by the bathos) but I guess it will ever be a rocky
road. I commented only on that juncture in the review, not the rest of
it and not Reid.
Very different reactions to the same thing are only discussable, I
guess, after some agreed agenda has been located. When A sees a red
car and B sees a yellow one with purple spots, that's interesting but
the end of the matter, isn't it?
Peter
On 1 Oct 2012, at 01:51, Jamie McKendrick wrote:
Peter,
Can I slow this down? McSomeone calling you a geriatric poetaster
I'm assuming is a joke.
In case it isn't, you have my assurance I have never called anyone a
geriatric or a poetaster in private or in public.
As for the Parnassus thing you mentioned earlier that "in many
outlets (such as the admirable Fortnightly Review) a dose of
controversy is welcomed as stimulating reader interest."
I've liked the controversial element in your Fortnightly Reviews and
have made positive remarks about three of them (the first one, the one
on prizes and glancingly about the review of the Hybrid anthology).
The controversial nature of these posts is surely meant to provoke
reactions, so I don't see why my disagreement about the Parnassus
event should be so disturbing. I can see that you've researched these
articles carefully and even say as much on this occasion: "I haven't
read the anthology which he reviews very attentively..."
My experience of the festival, however, was as I said "quite
distinctly at odds" with what you describe, and I spent considerably
more than your hour and a half there, so I felt quite at liberty to
disagree. As it happens, before I went, I shared quite a few of the
doubts you express about the idea of representing every nation with a
poet etc. But I found a convivial, serious and quite focused space
where I met poets from Nepal, Jamaica, South America and Eastern
Europe, as well as poet translators. I've attended a fair number of
Poetry International festivals in London where I have sometimes found
the atmosphere sometimes disappointing and atomized which look drab
beside some of the European equivalents such as Rotterdam. This was
very different. I see why the word 'democratic' might annoy you, but
let's say open and unheirarchical.
With the Italian poet Elisa Biagini (who doesn't at all write a
poetry of prosaic declaration) I held a translation workshop attended
by a well-informed and interested group of writers. I regret very much
not having been able to stay longer and hear Ilya Kaminsky, Piotr
Sommer and Valerie Rouzeau, just a few of the great many others that I
would have liked to hear, and was delighted to see had been invited.
So back to Reid's lines. I thought your 'THAT'LL SHOW THEM' was
fair comment. If the quoted lines were really supposed to put
academics in their place, I think you'd have to consider they fall
some way short of the mark. If, in context - a context which she
sketches - Aingeal Clare considers them "enjoyable sideswipes at the
pompousness and absurdity of academia" that also seems to me fair
enough, but it certainly doesn't look like someone desperately trying
to curry favour for an academic job.
Jamie
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Riley
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2012 7:55 PM
Subject: Re: University chiefs reel under critical attack
OK, I just got the impression that almost everything I've mentioned
here recently received a denial from you. Like Poetry Parnassus -- I
don't write these things lightly but I research them as best I can, so
it is disturbing having someone say You've got it all wrong, it wasn't
like that at all. Perhaps it wasn't you who called me a geriatric
poetaster either, but someone other Mc-Surname. But to throw the
ball back into your court -- what about those eight lines of Reid I
quoted. How would you make them out to be a critique of academe? What
value would you find in them whatever their purpose? (Having some
knowledge of Guardian editors, it occurred to me that they might have
omitted a sentence or more between "academia" and 'Brannigen'.)
Peter
On 30 Sep 2012, at 19:15, Jamie McKendrick wrote:
Strange that you should say this, Peter. Even here, I don't consider
my comment to be a categorical disagreement, whatever that is. I was
just as much disagreeing with John's remark and I conceed that there
may be a real concern about Guardian and other press coverage of poetry.
It's especially strange because for the most part I've admired your
Fortnightly Review pieces - and have commented positively here on at
least a couple of them. The one I took issue with was the description
of the Poetry Parnassus event and I tried to explain my objections,
again not in the least categorically. Valid or not, they weren't
favoured by any reply. On another recent occasion, I replied to Tim:
"The threshold requirement for sense being made differs radically
from reader to reader - though my tastes may be very different from
Peter's
I have the feeling from what he writes that the placement of this
threshold is in the vicinity."
This would suggest to me something far from categorical disagreement -
and something rather warmer than qualified agreement.
If I'm coming over as contentious, it may be that I'm not in tune
with the aesthetics of this list, if anything as unitary as that
exists. But even if I were better attuned, surely disagreements would
be natural enough.
In this case, I think Reid is a poet who doesn't deserve the mockery
that followed your post, and on my limited knowledge of her work I see
no reason to doubt the integrity of Aingeal Clare as a critic. If you
consider what I've written misguided or wrong in this or any other
instance, why not explain why?
Jamie
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Riley
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2012 5:50 PM
Subject: Re: University chiefs reel under critical attack
Do you always disagree categorically with everybody or is it just me?
On 30 Sep 2012, at 14:43, Jamie McKendrick wrote:
I see no evidence that in this review, or in other reviews I've read
by Aingeal Clare, that she has compromised herself in any way rather
than praised what she's enjoyed. That she enjoys what Peter and John
clearly don't is not a reason to impugn her integrity. It's an
astonishingly self-righteous assumption.
I'm inclined to agree that there isn't much negative criticism in
the Guardian poetry reviews and that more controversy would be welcome
but that doesn't mean writers are "apparently obliged to laud the
subject" or are excercising some kind of inner censorship. I've only
written on poetry once for the Guardian and was under no pressure of
any kind to praise.
Jamie
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Riley
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2012 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: University chiefs reel under critical attack
OK but I don't understand why you have to compromise yourself just to
write a poetry review for the Guardian. They have people of very
different opinions writing about all sorts of poetry. They twice even
featured me. I do notice that their poetry reviews are apparently
obliged to laud the subject, which is bad policy for obvious reasons,
and could be challenged. I think in many outlets (such as the
admirable Fortnightly Review) a dose of controversy is welcomed as
stimulating reader interest.
Pr
On 30 Sep 2012, at 14:08, GOODBY JOHN wrote:
I agree with you. And I know Aingeal too. Her PhD research, recently
finished, was on Finnegans Wake. She's a very bright young woman who
knows the difference between the good and the whimsically bullshit.
But then reviews in the Guardian help to get you an interview for that
all-important first permanent academic post. Check the post-grad
unemployment rate.If she was your daughter and wondering whether to
take the Guardian shilling for the standard inspid, let's-not-rock-the-
boat piece, what would you advise her to do?
John
On 29 September 2012 20:36, Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
In today's Guardian there is a review of Christopher Reid's new book
"Nonsense" (Faber) by Aingeal Clare which among other things praises
"some enjoyable sideswipes at the absurdity and pompousness of
academia", quoting this example:
"Brannegan Wong
goes on too long.
Brannegan Wong
sings the same old song.
Brannegan Wong
with his luminous dong
and his numinous pong
comes on too strong."
THAT'LL SHOW THEM! /pr
