O deary deary me...

Geraldine:
>Why is 'high chat' (whatever that means -  I didn't think we'd gone there to
>discuss the weather and the price of baked beans)  distanced from reality?
>This is an anti-intellectual statement that is so depressingly English it
>makes me feel like emigrating.   But being an 'insider' on that fateful day
has
>made me incapable of buying a ticket  in the real world. Pass me the asprins
-
>I've got a virtual headache.
>What 'lie'?   What bloody 'lie'.  If David B was angry I can tell you I'm
>now bloody furious.  'Lie'   You think I'd travel half way across the
country and sit
>through a 'lie' or be party to a 'lie' ?  This is all too absurd to
contemplate.
>There was  a conference.  There's probably a conference going on in
Sheffield about
>architecturer as I speak - probably by architects. Does that make it a 'lie'
>or 'unreal' because I'm not there or because the people attending don't live
>in Sheffield?   This is the preposterous logic you are applying to the
>poetry conference.   I just cannot believe  this hostility poured onto a few
poets
>who arranged to meet up for a couple of days BY OTHER POETS.  Why such
>self-loathing ?... ETC

As David B said, a bit OTT. A little mishap occurred with my posting too.
What got sent was an early version of a letter which I revised and then
thought I was backchanneling to David. Instead the old version got sent to
the mailbase by mistake. No matter - but the 'lie' bit was removed in the
revision. Quite glad it stayed now. Geraldine, I am not sure about you, but I
sit through lies day in day out, in one form or another, usually smiling away
happily.
I think Kent's posting said what I was trying to say perfectly. You are a
clever man Kent, obviously. Thanks.
Back to you Geraldine... I agreed with what you and Alan said and I said so.
On that level your comments about Davids original posting were valid, and
yes, I've said as much to others myself in similar circumstances. My point
was that there is a deeper level of contradiction: a level which is not
always perceptible, and therefore not relevant, to those taking part. As i
said above, Kent's comments express the thing far clearer than my fumbling
attempt, and if you want to engage with that then fine, I'll join in - how
about on Boxing Day.

David K, are you really saying that David B picked up on absolutely nothing
whatsoever? Remember, we are not talking 'ideas' here, we are talking
'experience'.
You go on:

>There was discussion/questioning about whether it
>was possible to borrow ideas from other disciplines without taking on board
>everything implied by and in those ideas. Karen Mc Cormack, Charles
>Bernstein, Steve McCaffrey are, it seems to me as someone still relatively
>new to their poetries, hyper-scrupulous about the implications of everything
>they do and say and write and read. Indeed, that is partly why they write as
>they do. They are not engaged in some species of high-minded postmodern
>intellectual shopping - they are engaged in highly ethical forms of
>practice.

As my kids would say: 'OOOOOoooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo'.
My gOD David, you make it sound absolutely awful; personally I'd prefer good
ole 'high-minded postmodern intellectual shopping' - sounds fun. But this has
nothing to do with the intentions or doings of those at the conference - I
was not being sarcastic when I said i would have loved to have been there.
The issues of perceived elitism and exclusivity have been raised here before,
notably by Peter Riley, but whenever this happens the thing gets treated as
having no consequence. Now, as you will see by looking at the archive, i do
not exactly see eye-to-eye with Peter on the matter, but I do think it is of
some consequence.

In conversations about poetry, with people who are not into the material i
like, i am constantly defending the right of those who are 'intellectual', or
difficult, or obscure or what have you, to be those things, just as I am sure
you and I both would defend the right of those who are more straight forward
to be so as well. The problem is that it is nearly always one-way traffic.
The tendency of the 'avant garde' - more pronounced a few years ago than now,
thankfully - to pounce on the slightest hint of criticism with heavy curses
and exclusion orders, has been self-damaging in the long term. It has rarely
addressed the problems, preferring to mirror the mainstream's tribalism with
a rather shrill and self-conscious version of its own. When pushed on the
matter i know which side i come down on, but that is not the point - the
point is two wrongs don't make a right etc. So this issue is not to do with
what 'sunny delight' does within its own context, it is to do with how it
relates to the wider world, and relate it does of course whether it wants to
or not, and this relating is generally perceived to be haphazard and/or
negative, whatever its intentions. Why is this? Is this entirely down to the
stupidity and ignorance of everyone else? Is someone like David Bircumshaw
stupid or ignorant? Both David and myself have challenged the kind of
simple-minded 'anti-elitist pose' gestural populism that rears its head here
sometimes and yet whenever we dare to turn the coin over we invite the flack.
I'm used to getting fired on from both sides mind, so fire away, maybe the
explosion will illuminate something. Our expressed feelings about the
disgraceful behaviour of the establishment's powerbrokers have landed us both
in the nightsoil on occasion too but this usually comes with brownie-points -
not so when we question these more vague and peripheral pockets of, albeit
unconscious, power. Of course it is harder to get a handle on this kind of
thing, and less immediately rewarding, and damn uncomfortable too. Tough.

I am now going to write a poem called 'The Homeless Architect'. Thanks for
the 'inspiration'.

Tim A.