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Hi all, coming back home after a ludicrous spin of a week, at the end of which Miles Champion had asked me what had happened under this subject heading and we'd had a lengthy head to head about it. I'm glad that the issues are broadening. But as they do so, it would seem that the field of discussions becomes murkier. But there is an historical context that might be worth remembering in that time of 'artist-led' initiatives. The Poetry Society was temporarily run by poets. At a time that its contemporaries in innovative approaches to music had set up the London Musicians Collective, in film there was the London Film-makers Coop, in new dance there was the X6 Collective, Camerawork in photography. Each an artist-led organisational structure. I belive the POetry Society of this period belongs alongside them. Each had a magazine too, 'Musics' (leter Contexts), 'Readings', 'Camerawork', 'New Dance'. This is no coincidence. Yet, none of the others achieved sufficient quality of threat to the 'mainstream' in contradistinction to which it emerged, to be considered in need of quashing. Except for the Poetry Society that is. I don't suggest this in any sense other than that it is curious how much of a threat what took place at the Poetry Society must have been seen, in order to order an investigation headed by a member of that august body, the House of Lords (Sir John Witt) and pushed through from the top at the Arts Council (Charles Osborne). Could it be that what was dangerous about the Poetry Society at that time was exactly what Andrew Duncan, according to Doug, criticises it for failing? Namely some provocative, and if we are to measure it by the reaction presumably at least partially successful, experiments in the democratisation of new writing in poetry. Why was the Poetry Society singled out? What was it about the poetry and the stance towards poetry that rendered it the subject of such vicious attack (which appears to be continuing)? ADs critique implies that something other than a 'retreat' was a possibility. (How long did it take the party left to recover under the same politcal imperatives? Has it recovered?) But was what took place in fact a retreat or an abandonment of fallow ground? Do such arguments not play into redundantly binary concepts of centre and margin? You see, you might, I might, argue in favour of a process of necessary dispersal from centre that this unwittingly effected. The beginnings of essential de-centralisation. The result, today, is the emergence of increasingly robust trans-local networks. Poised to take advantage. Probably not what Charles Osborne had in mind. A key assemblage then in Doug's paraphrase of AD's focus lies, as Bill Griffiths suggests, in the application of 'democratic' to 'experimental' and 'poetry'. These are not comfortable bedfellows. In what ways can experimental poetry be democratic? Are we talking about Chris Smith's liking for a 'people's poet' or Blair avowed preference for a 'peoples' poet' as laureate? If we're going to talk about democracy as not being a manufacture of consent, if we're talking about it as an experiment then I'm getting interested. How might a democratically experimental poetry work? Might it for example, dispell problems of mysticism by revealing its process, by composing work which explores ways to maximise the empowerment of the reader? Might it suggest that poetry be publicly available, not merely in books but on billboards, on television etcetera? Which language might it be written in? What values might it embody? Might it not provide access to facilities and resources by which anybody might bring their poems into print? Might it not seek to provide links between contemporary 'experimental' approaches and those of the past? Sounds a little like the Poetry Society in the mid 1970s, doesn't it? hmmmm For the record the LFMC is now rehoused in the splendid Lux cinema in HOxton Square, alongside London Film and Video Arts. X6 became Chisenhale (something yours truly was actively involved with the development of for almost a decade), still operating in Bow. The LMC runs its annual festival, the magazine 'Resonance' and is increasingly dabbling in mainstream venue programming (i do not mention that perjoratively). Camerawork is still going. The Poetry Society was placed back into the 'safe' hands of bureaucrats. One of the main criticisms levelled at it, in my memory, was its over-reliance on 'volunteers'. Nowadays though arts organisations are praised for any involvement they can secure from 'volunteers'. Plus ca change love and love cris %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%