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Though I was taking a contrary view this still chimes with me. There is something preposterous about being fashed about an improbable future. But we do care what the world will be like even when we're not here to enjoy it and I don't see why that shouldn't apply to what we leave in it, however insignificant that is. I know that the visual arts are another thing because of their materiality, but an experience I had with them is, at least for me, related. I once gave to a friend a very intricate collage which took days to make, and some five years later when visiting found all the tiny pieces of coloured paper piled behind the glass at the bottom of the frame. I'd been using the equivalent of pritstick. I started making enquiries and from then on have been using a top-of-the-range German glue. (Which doesn't even cost that much more.) Call it vanity, or consideration, but if you make something it seems reasonable to want to make it last. Does this make any sense? Jamie (m) Sent from my iPad > On 29 Aug 2016, at 12:28, Tim Allen <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > The notion of posthumous recognition, which will for eternity remain no more than a notion, makes me laugh out loud one moment then crinkle my face up into puzzlement the next. Years ago I had an ongoing disagreement with a poet friend for whom legacy was an important issue - my view was that it didn't matter a jot because what difference does it make to the individual concerned, none whatsoever, except in their mind while still living. But that was 'years ago', and those years have definitely made the issue more problematic for me because as the see-sawing between absurdity and meaning that we must all experience, poets or not, is itself down to knowledge of annihilation, how can there be any fixed response? One day you dream of an archive while the next you take joy in the bonfire etc. As my own work is engaged with this see-sawing between absurdity and meaning, two interchangeable and fluid categories, the notion of posthumous recognition itself becomes by default part of the satire. > > Cheers > > Tim Allen (I've put Allen and not just A because of a sudden anxiety about posthumous recognition) > >> On 26 Aug 2016, at 14:31, David Lace wrote: >> >> Not being a poet myself, I’m fascinated by the concept of posthumous recognition for ones poetry. Some poets I know of are also fascinated by it, and have gone to some lengths to ensure that their poetry (indeed also themselves) gain some sort of posthumous recognition. Many of them have been quite proactive in this regard, and have taken measures to ensure that their poetic output (and other relevant miscellany) is regularly deposited in various university archives and Special Collection departments around the world. Are there any on this list who this applies to, and if so can you tell us something about your motivations and experiences of doing this.