(Yet again, sorry to Tim for two copies...)
On Mon, 2004-11-29 at 12:47, [log in to unmask] wrote:
> What I think many young poets are looking for is a notion of a
> singularity that can stand as a positive, not a negative, alternative,
> and they are trying to disclose one here that is distinctly British,
> not American. I think they will find it very difficult, not because
> this web isn't rich, but because it is unspectacularly de-centred.
As young (21, even younger in my attempts to write poetry at a year or
so) I am forced to agree. I have a great desire to put my finger on the
current poetical pulse in order to learn what those slightly older than
me are doing and understand it, so I can go on to extend their work (or
build something new of my own on top of it). However, there seems to be
a resistance to the idea of a 'pulse', or even several pulses.
This is made harder for me because I find it difficult to understand
very much of the poetics behind a poem by just reading it. I am a
mathematics student (rather than a literature student, say) so probably
don't have a proper background. I've been reading as much as I can for
years but, while it's easy to build up a good deal of knowledge about
Modernity poetry, say, or earlier poetry I find the closer one gets the
current day the less information there is. This current resistance to
categories makes it downright impossible.
I'm sure I've tried to make this point here before, and the whole thing
is probably more due to my inability to read and comprehend than the
general community's unwillingness to explain to me in small words
exactly what it is doing.
Still, my stupidity aside, I see the forming of (temporary) groups as a
good thing. Think of Pound and his Imagists. I like the idea of people
putting their cards on the table so I can easily read them. :)
bob
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