I'm watching this conversation at a distance …..
Tilla Brading
On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 2:42 PM, Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> It may be the Cambridge vapours, Tim, but I think it's wider. Most of the
> innovating or "new modernist" poets I'm aware of spend most of their time
> (e.g on facebook) pouring out bitter complaint, protest of all kinds, and
> make it quite clear that the world they inhabit ("western society" or
> something bigger than that) is WRONG. All of it. It has gone off the rails,
> kicked the bucket, run to ground, it has become a thing to be extremely
> angry about. The things they specify generally are very wrong, and should
> be shouted at, but to them that's all there is, the entire purpose of the
> exercise. The totalising nature of dislocated poetry spreads these angers
> everywhere.
>
> Then when they get off their platforms they are cheerful, friendly and
> perfectly normal people in happy families interested in cats, gardening
> etc. But the poetry is ON the platform. That's what it's for. Why, after
> all, seek to abandon and distort normal communicative language but because
> you believe it is tainted by the dereliction of the public world?
> Everything is wrong and everybody is to blame. I've given several examples
> of how this operates in my recent reviewing, notably on D.S. Marriott, and
> Ed Dorn who declared that what was wrong was actually human existence, or
> life on earth, it was a big swindle. He didn't "mean" it of course, which
> to me makes no difference.
>
> But indeed in the wider world of all those thousands of "innovanti" I do
> not exactly know which I am talking about or how many different strains
> there are. And I'd have to agree that when it gets more ludic there is a
> different tone.
>
> Immediately I can think of better ways of saying this.
>
> xP
>
>
>
> On 16 Mar 2015, at 14:01, Tim Allen wrote:
>
> Peter - where did you get the idea that the 'innovanti' do not find
> reasons to be glad? Ridiculous. One of the strands that runs through lots
> of innovative work is its life-affirming joy. I take it you have never
> picked up on this in your many years of being involved with poetry. Once
> again you seem to be referring to a particular bit - maybe the Cambridge
> thing (but even then I would dispute it) then tarring all with your grump
> brush.
>
> Cheers
>
> Tim
>
>
> On 16 Mar 2015, at 11:40, Peter Riley wrote:
>
> One of the reasons I'm not suited to this kind of forum is that every time
> I send something I immediately think of a better way of saying it. My last
> communication would have been a lot more accurate if the wording had been--
>
> I find that the best way of being grumpy among the innovanti is to go
> around insisting that there are reasons to be glad.
>
> As there are. It makes all the difference.
>
> P Grump.
>
>
>
>
