Well you may be right about that, David – plus ça change. Certainly, looking around at the social
politics of Britain that seems very much the case. I don’t take quite as gloomy
a view as you about the social politics of poetry, though mine isn’t especially
rosy either. Yet I do see some talent scattered about, and very evidently not
the preserve of the middle or upper classes.
Anyway, I’ve been spectacularly
unpersuasive on this issue of the great divide and have bored myself and others
silly, so unless there’s some completely nonsensical claim being made, my
belated new year’s resolution is to put a sock in it. A rotten rock might serve
as well.
Jamie
From: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">David Bircumshaw
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2018 12:47 AM
Subject: Re: "a man speaking to men"
It is a particular and flexible historical fact about the history of dear
old Britannia that the old guard always changes, Jamie, but always stays in
charge of the gates. Britain has a class system that endures, and the stamp of
it runs right through its poetry, like a watermark, or the tooth-rotting tattoo
in seaside rock.
Always. The rotten rock in the beating
waves.