I`m pleased to have helped call down some thoughtful,
thought-provoking posts on the subject, esp. Keith`s and cris`s...
Prynne, from the "Letter on Language Poetry": "...a Sentence is not
emotional, and not to undergo that negation as both liberation and
privation (one way of relenting) is to fold voluntarily into one
dimension?"
I find a lot more in the Letter than the (quite brilliant) revoking
of readerly license too casually promoted by its addressee.
Also, Keith`s first point seems to me to be explained BY Tom`s work`s
relative visibility in the U.S., and not so much an explanation OF
it. Much of the rest of his post I would eagerly assent to, and
I`m grateful for the succinct and convincing analysis, altho` the
fourth point, amid several acute judgments, seems to celebrate a
fantastic and sociable bloke and momentarily forget we`re talking
poetry. I "can`t imagine busting a gut reading" tottering state or
Clean And Well Lit even if the gregariousness and good humour of
their author seems far more attractive than the odd kind of exposure
("liberation and privation") involved in locking yourself in the library
at Gonville & Caius. I don`t mean to slight Prynne - don`t know him
- only time I met him I brought him to Glasgow in November 95
and he was Charm itself; I respect but don`t share his reasons for
not spreading it about a bit more.
>From cris`s posting: "...what do you mean by that old chestnut Form
and Content - these are books."
Well...what do you mean by that old chestnut "books"? I have serious
reservations about the usefulness of terms such as "form" and
"content" but I don`t think they`re dispensable - drop them and you
could find yourself talking about the same thing with a different
label...
And what price a "linguistically innovative poetics" which has
dispensed with the concepts of form and content?
robin
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