I think there are a few things seriously wrong with this sentence though I
understand its direction. First off, I don’t get the “we” in “we recommend” –
“he recommends” would do better. I realise Paterson’s a well-known, much
applauded poet who is also editor of a big list, but I think like any other
mortal he should be allowed to speak in propria persona, as I guess he was
invited to do.
But the main thing I disagree with is in what is being understood as
recommended:
“above all else ordinary communicative
language with personal peculiarities witnessing to things you have noticed,
neatly expressed.
(I haven’t heard the programmes but I would very much doubt this is what
Paterson is advocating.)
The
above, anyway, is not for me the common denominator of these poets, which I
don’t think exists. I suspect Bishop, for instance, is very cool towards Frost,
and I read her ‘Sandpiper’ as a concealed critique of the egotism in Frost’s
(also far from ‘ordinary’ and ‘communicative’, but rather sly and playful ‘For
Once, Then, Something’. Perhaps “witnessing to things you have noticed” might be
something Bishop herself would accept, as she called herself a “minor
Wordsworthian” or words to that effect, but I wouldn’t accept it as in any way
adequate on her behalf.
Still, I don’t want to dwell on what I take to be a sigh of exasperation from
Peter, because it promises to lead back to what at least for me is a far less
interesting terrain (inevitably involving personal attacks on supposedly
‘representative’ figures) than the discussion we were having about anthologies.
Anyway I need to resolve an ordinary personal and peculiar crisis of my
own...
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2017 10:19 AM
Subject: Re: Larkin, Heaney, listpeak
Agree
Peter, but I have a funny feeling that if I said what you've said below you
would have pounced in negatively, particularly the middle sentence.
Cheers
Tim
On 24 Sep 2017, at 17:53, Peter Riley wrote:
Actually,
yes, I do. They are certainly not problem-free, and no more “guaranteed
quality” than Stevens, Dylan Thomas, Lee Harwood, Geoffrey Hill or a dozen
more. The assembling of them into one block suggests that for starters
we recommend above all else ordinary communicative language with personal
peculiarities witnessing to things you have noticed, neatly expressed. Nothing
wrong in principle with that, but Otherwise, why Frost rather than
Yeats or Stevens? “Difficulty”? why not start with difficulty? Or instead, why
not start with Ginsberg?
