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Hi Michael I haven't time now for a proper reply as I'm on the hoof for some days but I'll just say a few disconnected top-of-the-head things: I move in that populated world too, or versions of it. But enforced obedience is something I resist, and something I know comes with the poetry version. Poetry, through the twists of time, has developed into the most intimate of voiced arts, and anathema to the language of the herd, which is what the ambitious deploy to annex it as a marketable commodity. I don't know Scott's writing well at all, with the exception of some Border Antiquities. When I was about eight an aunt decided I wanted to read Ivanhoe and Kenilworth, I sniffed at them, and resolutely refused. I am though aware that Longfellow was a very literary poet, not quite the naif he might have wanted some readers to believe. I would think the need for clear blue water is one of the many undesirable consequences of the growth of capitalist societies. If anyone needs a reproof for populism you need only to intone words like Farage Putin Brexit Trump. As a PS I was fairly close touch with some of the people behind flarf at its inception and they were a) very sophisticated literati and b) intensely ambitious for their 'share'. Liked some of them but their way wasn't for me. I'll have a peek at the links when I'm back next week. regards David On 25 January 2018 at 12:27, [log in to unmask] < [log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hi David! > > Your reply has made me think a bit more, especially about whether the > commercial/consumerism angle sharpens the need for criticism. > > I suppose my view of this popular poetry is that showing how inferior > Longfellow is to Shelley or Patience Strong to Emily Bronte (by various > literary standards); showing how naive, or trashy or sentimental or > lightweight this poor popular stuff is; is the most obvious and easy but > least interesting thing to say about it. Beyond our desks (if not on them) > is a vast, stupefying world of popular art. While we sit at home wrinkling > our brows over dense knotty poetry, others around us are going to steampunk > events, buying pearly birthday cards with messages of condolence, watching > hillbilly TV about filling your face with burgers, reading Autocar and the > property pullout in the Saturday Mail, reading through the complete Lee > Child, making henna tattoos and hair-wraps, going on conspiracy forums, > buying boy band calendars, singing in carol concerts, and about a million > other activities about which we'll all have various gut reactions. Popular > art matters because it mops up so much of our world's surplus value. To me, > it just feels more interesting to try and understand what it's doing than > to find it wanting. > > Perhaps I should shut up at that point, but I also think the line between > this popular poetry and canonical art-poetry isn't clearcut. The taught > canon tidies up the promiscuous mess of literary history. An instance that > comes to mind from your list is that behind both Longfellow and Whitman > lies the same poet, Scott. And the despised Longfellow tends to be taken a > lot more seriously by students of the Kalevala and the Eddas (is the > Kalevala art-poetry or popular poetry?). Why does it seem necessary for > there to be "clear blue water" between popular poetry and what's accepted > as art-poetry? Proponents of queer poetry and camp maybe posed that > question first (e.g. Ashbery's "Variations, Calypse and Fugue on a Theme of > Ella Wheeler Wilcox"). Another view of this anxiety that has influenced me > a lot is Johannes Göransson/Joyelle McSweeney meditations on the "Plague > Ground" (specifically with reference to kitsch, but in the wake of the > Gurlesque debate I referred to before), e.g. > http://exoskeleton-johannes.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/future- > of-poetry-by-joyelle-mcsweeney.html > http://montevidayo.com/2012/12/its-still-too-much-the- > plague-ground-of-poetry-in-the-age-of-internets-part-1/ > > > > > >>>There was plenty of bad commercially successful poetry in the past : > Martin Tupper or Patience Strong for example. Should they be exempt from > criticism too? What about slightly more sophisticated bad poetry of the > past - Betjeman's 'Summoned by Bells' - the individual best seller of the > 20th century in Britain, or the Quarles emblem books or the Fitzgerald > version of Omar Khayyam?? Isn't Longfellow wonderful, I chant sections from > Hiawatha to myself every evening at dusk, followed by a selection of Pam > Ayres for that contemporary touch. Have you heard the rap version of the > Ingoldsby Legends? > >>>>I think people like Kate Tempest or Holly McNish or Kaur or rap > artists by and large are aiming to provide a commodity, a marketable > product, and as a potential consumer I have every right to say, bellow or > bleat 'No' in their various directions. It isn't a matter of a category > error: I can certainly conceive there can be non-commercial rappers and I > can imagine equivalents elsewhere. I recall a previous discussion where it > was objected, re Tempest, that people were attacking 'a young woman at the > start of her career'. I have no responsibility to support her career, > anymore than I have an obligation to endorse bad footwear. >