I thought Sean's post was 'well put' in general. He said a lot there and to be honest I didn't take much note of the Heaney/Muldoon remark - you could say I glossed over it. But Jamie, I don't see anything in what Sean said that could be interpreted as him saying that Heaney and Muldoon were 'necessarily culpable or collusive' because they didn't 'address the topic' of the troubles. You've read that into it somehow.I think that in his own way Heaney never glossed, but sidestepped, and he had his reasons, but I don't honestly care enough about his poems to be bothered by that. And yes, as you say, 'Muldoon is rarely explicit about anything'.
But how about getting back to this thread's title, Kate Tempest, the performance poet. In todays Guardian Review she gets two pages of adulation plus a poem by her that is so bad it's laughable.
Now when the world is in such a bloody mess and there are so many terrible things going on to make us despair I can't really bring myself to care too much about this trivial issue - that the middle class literati and media lovies who know sod all about poetry want to laud the work of this young girl (who's general politics etc I quite agree with and who obviously has some talent away from the written page) in order to appear 'cool' or something is no surprise. But I do not agree with Peter Riley that her getting that Ted Hughes reward etc was a 'category error'. I know what he means but he is wrong. An error means mistake, but this was no mistake. Giving Kate Tempest that prise was a knowing act of cultural politics.
In the article Kate says, about getting on the Next Generation Poets list, "It was not something i had consciously aspired to, and, until I got the call from Don, I didn't imagine I would ever be published as a poet". Don of course is Don Paterson, and Don, of course, does know something about poetry etc.
I've said much here before about the 'values' of performance poetry, and why performance poetry was and is so acceptable to the mainstream and the establishment - about how that 'acceptance' is an example of middle class patronisation and inverted snobbery. But I don't really know (because I have no way of knowing) how much it is also a case of people not wanting to appear like old farts, of wanting to appear... what's that phrase?... 'down with the kids' (UGH), the fear of not being cool. Pathetic either way.
Apart from the fact that it is often cliched rubbish my main issue with performance poetry is its in-built obsequiousness partnered by its pretence of being rebellious. Poetry should challenge its audience, whether written or performed, not pander to it - and I don't mean challenge as being difficult but challenge as being questioning and curious.
There are now many really good young poets around who do write challenging and questioning poetry, and who can perform it well to - so why isn't Don Paterson knocking on their door?
Cheers
Tim A.
On 4 Oct 2014, at 17:34, David Bircumshaw wrote: