"If someone held an International conference which had no relationship to
where it was held on the street where you lived and people came out of it
talking about the desirability of viewing poetry, that art of Celan's
'messages in a bottle', in terms of frigging architecture wouldn't you feel
a wee bit 'invaded'?"
1. I don't think that I or Karen Mac Cormack or Steve McCaffrey said it was
desirable - I reported the fact that they said they were starting to view
poetry in that way and found it useful. It may not be useful or 'desirable'
for other writers or non-writers to do so. In fact, the kind of architecture
described sounded to me to be more conceptual than buildable - in fact,
Karen Mac Cormack was I think asked this several times: yes, but could these
buildings actually be built.
2. For those who don't know Leicester, Oxford St can only be described very
loosely as a street where people live. It has always been and still is lined
with commerical premises - pubs, offices, an antiques mart. It is a main
artery into the city centre down which cars and commerical traffic race in
three or four lanes. I imagine that David B must be living in the large
blocks of flats which are at the opposite end of the street from where the
conference was held and which are set back considerably from anything that
could be called a street?
3. There are lots of things that happen on streets where people live that
have no relation to the lives lived there. That's what happens when people
live and work in close proximity in places called cities. I find it a
curious idea that cultural products should only tell us things about where
we already are, what we already know. This is only one thing they can do. I
find it even more curious that people seem to take cultural things so
personally. If you don't like it, don't go, don't read it etc. In the words
of one speaker, there is work that requires me and I hope I'm happy to be
required. The inverse is obvious.
But now back to the everyday grind.
cheers
David
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