Tim, I’m removing the sock for your ‘to conform to mainstream expectations’
remark, as it qualifies for my ‘nonsensical’ criteria for sock-removal. I’m sure
you could find numerous writers who you’d place in that category that feel at
least as passionately averse to the phenomenon as you do. Watts herself I’m sure
you’d place there and it’s her who’s speaking out about it.
It may seem a small point but as I mentioned on the other
parallel thread it’s not the T.S.Eliot prize but the Ted Hughes Prize which I
believe was created to give a bit of profile to mixed media poetry. People are
still entitled to question it whatever prize it wins.
How
about this Michael - over the past few years I have heard/witnessed many
different young poets, and among them a number whose work could be slotted into
the confessional/therapeutic/oral performance bag. And among them I have heard
poetry that is far far better than what I've read of McNish, yet these are
relatively unknowns. So what is going on? What is it about McNish that makes her
special? The only thing I can think of is that she is just about good enough in
one way (to conform to mainstream expectations) while the nature of her work can
simultaneously be presented as current etc.
My liking for adventurous poetry that pushes and provokes is not limited to
the avants, it also covers the raw and direct when that raw and direct manages
to avoid the easy options of cliche and crowd pleasing rubbish, and when it is
real, and not just a clone of the real (I can go for clones of the real in a
different type of poetry but not this one - in this one the real has got to be
real, and it's got to work). There's quite a bit of it around at the moment and
yes, Melissa Lee-Houghton is definitely one of the most successful, and I mean
that positively. So for me it's not just a case of McNish or whoever writing
something that is completely alien to my receptors or taste, because it's not -
I just think it's very average poetry that borders on the poor, so if this stuff
happens to win the Eliot etc then I think people are right to question it.
The thing about the prizes is weird. I could say that I don't give a fig
(as you expressed) or that because of this example I suddenly find myself giving
a fig. Go figure...
Cheers
Tim
I've
quickly read some Melissa Lee-Houghton poems and yes, I think they too could
exemplify what I mean.