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May I ask here? I tried to start a new thread but I appeared to be spam. Can one rationally choose between critical views or poetics beyond mere agreement with their judgments of value? I think *only if* I can e.g. side with Zukofsky's definition of literature,that it appears when shape follows words and begins sound and structure, but make an exception for Shakespeare? Hope that makes sense. Cheers, Luke On 20 December 2017 at 13:41, Jamie McKendrick <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Though inland far we be - as another port once said. > I'm guessing ED is exemplary in Drew's post for her abjuration of > publishing - 'as foreign to my thought, as Firmament to Fin. My Barefoot > Rank is better.' The perfect rejoinder to the title of this thread. > Xmas Greetings from a suspiciously mild Oxford, > Jamie > > Sent from my iPad > > > On 20 Dec 2017, at 08:53, Lisa Samuels <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > > I like 'ports', as in ports of call, as in Emily Dickinson's 'Futile - > the winds - to a Heart in port -' (with apologies if I've misrecalled the > subjective correlatives of your diacritics, Emily) > > & happy season from Cambridge with its alternate sunny chills and > polemical winds, > > Lisa > > > > > > > > ________________________________________ > > From: British & Irish poets <[log in to unmask]> on > behalf of Jamie McKendrick <[log in to unmask]> > > Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2017 1:42 AM > > To: [log in to unmask] > > Subject: Re: pets win prizes encore > > > > I'd forgotten Riding but was thinking about older invocations to the > reader and also Mandelstam's essay about the 'Adressee', as it's translated. > > The work I have to finish today is answering editorial objections to a > prose translation. Quite a number as it happens, most of them reasonable. > So an instance of having to face up to the pressures of a particular > reader. Not sure how far that differs regarding prose and poems. Prose is > more likely to have the time and money to have someone pay close attention? > Just a thought. > > J > > > > Sent from my iPhone > > > >> On 18 Dec 2017, at 12:29, Drew Milne <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> > >> Ah yes, Field Marshal Sir General Reader.... the common reader owes > more to Woolf than my straw target, Sir General Reader, who is intended to > self-destruct in a blaze of comic smoke. There is a long-running set of > invocations of the supposed needs and interests of the common reader, going > back to polemics made by Laura Riding in the 1920s and 1930s, a parallel > argument to the needs and interests of Terence Rattigan's Aunt Edna: < > https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/terence-rattigan-invents-aunt-edna> > >> > >> seasonal cheer all round. > >> > >> D > >> > >> > >>> On 18/12/2017 12:23, Jamie McKendrick wrote: > >>> Poets or 'ports', portly poets. J > >>> > >>> Sent from my iPhone > >>> > >>>> On 18 Dec 2017, at 12:18, Jamie McKendrick <[log in to unmask]> > wrote: > >>>> > >>>> Drew, I was referring to a post of yours some while back with a > cartoon of Field Marshal the Common Reader before which poets are meant to > present arms. It seemed to me a striking but not very recognisable image > which assumed that poets (or certain ports) are servile before a despotic > set of expectations. I can't say this is a pressure I have ever felt and > doubt anyone who takes the art seriously would pay any attention to it. We > must all have encountered readers who are hostile to what we write. I > certainly have. We are free to listen to that hostility and see if there's > any reasonable cause, or ignore it. Still, I have found the criticism of > certain readers, now as when I began writing, invaluable. But this is > something different from a more abstract notion of the Reader. > >>>> I'm interested in what you say about the reader here. I'll try to > put down a few thoughts, though I doubt they'll be of much use to anyone, > when I've finished some work that has to be in this evening. > >>>> Jamie > >>>> > >>>> > >>>>> On 17 Dec 2017, at 20:11, Drew Milne <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>> Seasonal goodwill to all. > >>>>> > >>>>> I'm not sure quite what is being recollected, but I have long > thought and argued that many poets don't write for existing audiences, or > for some idea of an audience that pre-exists what new poems might somehow > make possible, not least because the existing audience formations are > limited by histories of exclusion and authority that need to be broken > down... this isn't a prescription or an imperative, but a quality of poems > that they are addressed to more than their immediate and historically > overdetermined contexts... Poetry carries with it a sense of the histories > of song and language in ways antithetical to the world of prose, and > carries too the burden of being accountable to the imagination and to the > future in ways that prose too often surrenders to a conception of present > tense pragmatism..... William Blake and Emily Dickinson might serve as > significant examplars of orientations to the possibility of poetry as an > art, and this also suggests how poems might also be in dialogue with other > poems and not just with readers... but, then again, it isn't hard to > imagine how new social relations would open up completely new readerships > for poetry... > >>>>> > >>>>> I'd also argue that poetry needs to be thinking about representation > as such rather than about communication, and this has implications for > poetry that attempts to think against the limits of existing humanisms and > anthropomorphic projections.... > >>>>> > >>>>> then again, there are, as Peter Riley has suggested from time to > time, types of poetry that are hostile to any but very specific kinds of > reading in ways that suggest a kind of contempt for existing readerships, > or if not contempt exactly, then an orientation to kinds of scholarly > clerisy or religious / philological cabalisms, kinds of poetry that wants > adherents rather than readers, and such types of poetry are sometimes hard > to distinguish from work that seeks to radicalise and democratise poetry's > conditions of possibility by disputing all forms of literary > authoritarianism... > >>>>> > >>>>> Poets and poems that win prizes generally accord with existing > hierarchies of taste and authority, and that isn't always a bad thing.... > some great poets know how to play the sensibilities of their immediate > audiences: Shakespeare did this rather well... but in the limited democracy > of modern culture, any poem that looks like it is too happy about the > culture of prizes is fiddling while the fossil fuels burn.... don't get me > wrong, I'd love my poems to win a few prizes... and having written poems > for the giant turtles of Pacuare, I'm proud to be a runner up in the 2015 > Pacuare poetry prize: > >>>>> > >>>>> <http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6737178-human-nature-poems-for-pacuare> > >>>>> > >>>>> Drew > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>>> On 17/12/2017 18:05, Jamie McKendrick wrote: > >>>>>> We should savour these rare moments, Tim. All conducive to seasonal > goodwill, given that the list tends to get strangely fractious round xmas. > >>>>>> But I should add that I'm not picking a quarrel with David either. > We both agree - well who doesn't? - that many fine poets fail to receive > their just deserts in their lifetime. My only difference, if it is one, is > that I reckon it goes with the territory. I don't see why that should come > over as 'a bit aloof'. > >>>>>> As for canon formation, it sounds a bit grand and academic to me. > What most poets would be grateful for, I'd guess, is some attentive readers > - 'fit audience, though few' - although even this modest proposition, if > I'm not mis-recollecting an earlier remark by Drew, has awoken discord here. > >>>>>> With reference to David's subsequent post, I'm not sure I've met a > poet 'afraid of admitting they would like to be "recognised" in some way'. > It wouldn't take much bravery to admit most of us may feel that, either on > a personal level, or in terms of the public attention to the art, or on > both accounts. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Jamie > >>>>>> > >>>>>>> On 17 Dec 2017, at 16:26, Tim Allen <0000002899e7d020-dmarc- > [log in to unmask]> wrote: > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Sorry David but I agree with Jamie here - it's so obvious it > hardly needs saying. > >>>>>>> >