Geraldine wrote:

snip>Very briefly in reply to your thoughtful  posts.  Taking the above from
Jeremy I don't think the differences will exist side by side.  Not in the
sense that let's say (this is totally hypothetical) an anti-war poetry
reading at Birkbeck or Cambridge would suddenly invite the local creative
writing group  from Accrington or the dinner wo/man to read their poems at
the gathering.  It would be the 'same old faces' (I'm talking specifically
England) or to be more exact poetry of a certain aesthetic.

    I don't think observing that this crisis isn't going to change the map
of poetry-as-we-know-it  is detracting from the terrific response against a
dangerous and illegal war - rather than it is the common sentiment of a
political issue that draws us together not a common consent on aesthetics.
The whole beauty of this upsurge is the diversity of people it is drawing  -
we don't want war but we sure as damn ain't all going to start being nice to
each other and reading each other poems.< unsnip


This is very apt and I ruefully concur with its truth. The real value is the
fact of +people+ against war, not just poets. I know that the suggestion
that PAW invokes the Shelleyan 'unacknowledged legislators', with all the
overtones of frustrated desires for power over others the phrase carried,
has been repeatedly denied but the concept does leak out of the formulations
of PAW. Geraldine's hypothetical illustration is all too true, I know too
well what 'goes on'. An aside (1): the was a very odd little feature on BBC
Radio 4 yestermorn which gave a platform to some of the poets +for+ war.
They were dreadful and condemned their rantings out of their own mouths,
unfortunately, the piece was tail-wrapped by a brief interview and poem by
and with Adrian Mitchell, his poem against the poets for war was of such a
belligerent venomousness that it undermined his own stance, it gave the
impression that anyone who didn't agree with him was less than human.

Aside (2) for Alison this: just out of curiosity I add, I noticed in your
list of the poets in the Oz collection the name of Thom the World Poet. I
didn't know that berobed booming bard from the US had transformed himself
into an Australian. Just wondering when.


Best

Dave



David Bircumshaw

Leicester, England

Home Page

A Chide's Alphabet

Painting Without Numbers

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Geraldine Monk" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 2:58 AM
Subject: Re: 100 Poets Against the War


Fwd: Re: 100 Poets Against the War

    Should such differences be put aside?  Can they?  And what does it mean
when an experimental poem sits alongside what might cynically be described
as one of those "I-looked-at-my-child-and-realized-war-is-wrong" kind of
poems?


    Jeremy, Alison,Rupert, et al,

    Very briefly in reply to your thoughtful  posts.  Taking the above from
Jeremy I don't think the differences will exist side by side.  Not in the
sense that let's say (this is totally hypothetical) an anti-war poetry
reading at Birkbeck or Cambridge would suddenly invite the local creative
writing group  from Accrington or the dinner wo/man to read their poems at
the gathering.  It would be the 'same old faces' (I'm talking specifically
England) or to be more exact poetry of a certain aesthetic.

    I don't think observing that this crisis isn't going to change the map
of poetry-as-we-know-it  is detracting from the terrific response against a
dangerous and illegal war - rather than it is the common sentiment of a
political issue that draws us together not a common consent on aesthetics.
The whole beauty of this upsurge is the diversity of people it is drawing  -
we don't want war but we sure as damn ain't all going to start being nice to
each other and reading each other poems.

    And I suppose that's my point - who is going to read all those thousands
of poems except ones immediate social or peer group - no change there then.
It is the mass  gesture rather than the individual substance that is the
strength.
    Also,  more briefly ( I think Jeremy touched on this point but with more
eloquence than I can summon) I do wonder if 'Poet's against Anything and
Everything' is a 'selling point' - you only have to see how the actors and
various celebs are being ridiculed
    and vilified as hair-brained shallow-gits jumping on a bandwagon to
realise that as poets we are not a going to be a shock tactic.  The real
marvel of this anti-war movement  is that for once 'we' are not the 'usual
suspects' but are joined by Tories, Republicans, Muslims, Generals, the
Stiff Upper Lipped, the Down at Heels the everyoddbody - suddenly Ken Clarke
is 'one of us' and Jack Straw is 'one of them.'   That's not a seachange its
a tidalwave.
    Toots mi dears,
    G.






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