> Do you think that
> -- within a poem -- any direct and explicit suggestion about how we might
> tackle or at least react to political issues must inevitably become
> "illustrative" of a personal (and perhaps self-aggrandizing) disposition?
> That is, a lightshow of the informed individual? Not sure that I do, or
> that I don't
Keston: useful for you to put this this starkly. You'll be familiar with a
usual pattern of example & response here: (1) I think probably the poetic
projects most associated with such explicitness would be Pound & Olson; (2)
the usual answer to your question with reference to those projects becomes
"yes"--the analysis usually proceeding along the lines of an analysis of the
phallic/masculine ego, the excessive trust in presence, voice, coherence of
the self, etc.; (3) the corollary is, recently, a promotion of "alternative"
modernisms (Stein, H.D., etc.) & a wary recuperation of aspects of the male
modernist legacy. (I take it my portrait here however wire-drawn will be
recognizable: one might find one version of it in say Bernstein's essays
"Undone Business" & "Pounding Fascism".) -- I find myself rather bored with
this pattern of response--that may be more an emotional reaction than a
thought-through one. So OK, extended suggestions as to effective political
positions in poems _might_ lead to mere self-aggrandizement, guruism, etc.;
but surely such positions might indeed willingly expose the self more
riskily? I mean, you might be _wrong_! Or people might disagree with you.
Is that a trivial point to make? or is it the nub?
all best --N
Nate & Jane Dorward
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http://www.geocities.com/ndorward/
109 Hounslow Ave., Willowdale, ON, M2N 2B1, Canada
ph: (416) 221 6865
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