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NB: IRONY TAGS 'understood' THROUGHOUT, of course. Chris Emery wrote: >How does this list help nurture young poets? What is the role of the poet >in our society? How >should poets live? What advice can we offer? Whoa! what a mess of pottage. Does this list need to nurture? Do the young need nurturing by oldies? (Challenging, questioning, listening to... yes... but nurturing? who would be so presumptuous?) Even most birds have this the right way round, with the adults eating the young's shit (to conceal it from prying eyes), not the other way round. And why do only the young get the nurture? I'd love a bit of nurturing... at my age it might just be useful. And whose ideas of what might be nurturing are 'we' supposed to impose? Do ALL poets need only ONE role in our society? What about a ROLL in society (the muck the muck)? 'How SHOULD poets live?' Oooh! Don't ya LOVE that discipline? So deliciously puritan. Advice, on the other hand, is eminently sensible: Disseminate it with trowels, muck spreaders, data projectors and tlc. >truly refreshing... It is social and responsible. These words alarm me. Whose notions of what is responsible? Do 'we' all agree? What about social irresponsibility? My notion of responsibility may be your notion of irresponsibility. >However, many of the young have no sympathy with such notions. Like some of their elders. >Some would argue that it is the job of the poet to destroy >society in order to rebuild it. ... When societies and >cultures have been destroyed, the poet can help build new ones. Or >wrestle with the dust. how destroy? why rebuild? rebuild what? how does a wordhandler read by a few wordaddicts get to build anything? I am surprised to read these views of the 'Poet' as (what? shaman? revolutionary leader?) but maybe I have >retreated into semantics and not >washed in blood and money enough [though having seen a video of a Herman Nitsch performance recently I'm not sure I fancy the blood] >I don't mind being told off for citing Artaud and Tzara. I would mind very much. I must have missed this bit. I've just bought the CD of Artaud's banned radio broadcast - sure it is not 1990s style, but RESPECT to an ancestor, eh? I'd like to read your telling off. I tried to check the archive for this and for Doug's socially and responsibly refreshing challenge. I didn't find them. Can someone give me the reference or bung them backchannel? May I apologise to those who hate it for the 'quote and comment' style (see posts a few months ago)? I find it the easiest way to deal with email and the most useful disruption of the alternative 'essay' form (which also masquerades as the 'solo rant' style). I enjoy the different 'voices' in the 'quote and comment' style. I plan to mix a number of different quotees (sic) in future efforts. Let them cover their eyes as can't stand 'em (or go sing in the rain). Performance Writing Dartington College of Arts Totnes Devon TQ9 6EJ http://www.dartington.ac.uk/prospectus/pw.html Text of 'error studies and portraits' in issue #1 of Cartograffiti (ed. Taylor Brady) http://wings.buffalo.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti/contents/issue1/po ems/sumner/index.html Cleveland Performance Art Festival http://www.performance-art.org/weekone.html %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%