Can I just respond to Tim's "He is wrong" by pointing out something I thought everybody knew, that to say something is an "error" or "mistake" does not at all necessarily imply that it occurred by accident.

Like "Oh no! We've awarded Kate Tempest a prestigious poetry prize, how the hell did that happen?" 

Of course it was an error, of judgement, and a category error because it failed to acknowledge the differing aims and expectations of modern poetry and popular entertainment. This doesn't stop it being a strategy (for the destruction and eradication of what they think of as elitist intellectual poetry).

PR



On 4 Oct 2014, at 19:26, Tim Allen wrote:

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:

Not well put, Jamie

On 4 October 2014 16:30, Jamie McKendrick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Sean,
   Almost the only part of your post that relates to poetry – “To read Paul Muldoon or Seamus Heaney is a classic gloss on violence in Ireland” – I’m afraid I find  neither “well put” nor, more to the point, in the least bit true or informative.
I can hear the list’s collective sigh: ‘O no, here we go again...’
But since I’ve kept silent for some ten months (after a knowingly false accusation directed at me by David) and since no-one else apparently finds this representation a caricature, I might as well speak.
Though your phrasing makes little sense, I’m guessing by your statement “To read (M and H) is a classic gloss...” you mean that both these two very different poets condone or in some way support violence in Ireland, and are in that sense the moral equivalents of the tv sitcom you mention. Could you elucidate this point? In what way “classic”? In what sense a “gloss”?
   Apart from the ambiguous, pre-Troubles “snug as a gun”, in Heaney’s poems every mention of guns, and they are frequent enough (“In poetry” you say “the violence is rarely addressed”) seems to me to come with an explicit moral recoil, and sometimes a vivid sense of disgust. Muldoon is rarely explicit about anything but I don’t see how that makes his poems a “gloss on violence”.
  Both these poets do, in their contrasting ways “address” violence. In mainland Britain, let alone the US, nearly all of us live in or near cities with significant gun crime. Are poets who happen not to address this topic necessarily culpable or collusive?
Jamie
 
From: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">Tim Allen
Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2014 10:35 AM
To: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">[log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Kate Tempest etc
 
I agree, very well put. Quite funny though that it should come under the heading Kate Tempest etc.
 
Cheers
 
Tim
On 4 Oct 2014, at 07:39, David Bircumshaw wrote:

that is well put, Sean. 
 
On 3 October 2014 20:55, Sean Carey <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Overall the Cilla biopic was impressive and I often regret she moved more into Saturday night I.TV. rather than blending her two careers. She was one of many drawn into supporting the Conservatives from showbiz and pop music. Jim Davidson another who supported the Tory agenda when the party was in the position UKIP are moving into by targeting safe Labour seats. Mick Jagger's "Let's Work" proclaimed a similar message. 


In a modern Irish context "Mrs. Brown's Boys" is a huge viewing hit for Brendan O' Carroll and family in the U.K.. The presentation of modern Dublin in MBS offers a slapstick take on life in Mr. O' Carroll's Finglas suburb. Having worked in the area as well as living near it the realities of life are very different. It is a complex area with all the problems any W.European neighbourhood faces in 2014. The failure of the recent film reflected Brendan's limitations to move beyond the sitcom zone. 


The claims of O' Carroll to be a working class hero with P.R. stunts ignore the way the gun has become part of Irish life with drug gang shoot to kill tactics claiming many lives. Usually the dead or injured are canon fodder henchmen who work for their multi millionaire bosses. This brutal violence is not part of the O' Carroll picture of Dublin. In poetry the violence is rarely addressed nor the greed that sees blood flow and bullets fly often in view of children. Nor do I expect Bono to be addressing it on the new U2 album. 


Crime novels and films can be cosmetic and actual violence is rarely given the toxic impact it has. To read Paul Muldoon or Seamus Heaney is a classic gloss on violence in Ireland. The island has lost both political idealism and religous devotion in a very short space of time. The failure of anything to replace either is a worry we should consider in poetry. On this island the UKIP surge will change a lot of things our generation valued. The huge gains of the right across Europe last May showed us a recession does not help the left or the moderates. 
 



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