Dear Rupert and Martin,

1. Do poems exist only on the page? Are poems on the page scripts for
performance? What comes first to the poet - mouth or mark?

This question came up this week in the poetry seminar I'm teaching at
Rhode Island School of Design.  The notion that the visual and aural
/oral presentations of the poem are distinct and separate things
emerged.  The poem looks as strong and interesting as it can, and
sounds as strong and interesting as it can, but the visual reading and
the voice reading are 2 different things: the poem on the page is not
scored for reading.  This is not an answer to your questions, but a
remark.

2. Do poets build their audiences or is there a Poetry Audience?

I feel an urgency to make a new audience.  I feel a slightly frozen response
occasionally with the current audience.

3.  Poetry is the poor relation to the Arts, so why don't poets
collectively fight to change the relationship?

I think poetry is less tied to money than many of the other arts.
This is both a weakness and a strength.  Possibly the only way for
poets to collectively fight to change the relationship is to really
spark up what is meant by a poetry reading: to become performers; and
also to produce to-die-for books (I'm trying to identify ways to more
closely connect poetry with money).

4. Why fund poets when the Arts Council could just fund their publishers?

It's getting to the stage when it might be smarter to fund poets to be
their own publishers.

5. Surely, poets are always in competition with each other because of the
 plethora of poetry competitions?

If they are it's covert operations.

6. Poetry is just therapy and 'self help?' - Shades of Don Paterson

I don't see this function as pejorative.  Poetry is the best
medication. When I'm down I crawl home and write a poem; then I go out
and stroll through the acid-trip of my world.

7. If poetry is such a 'high art form,' why so many amateurs? - Shades of
Don Paterson

I don't know but I'm all for amateurs.

8. The academic study of poetry requires the 'text' - to analyse its
form and structure, let alone its content and context. So, can a poem
ever
escape its preconceived analysis?

I met a student at Randolph-Macon Women's College in Virginia during
the week who reminded me that the poet can get between the poem and
reader.  For some readers the act of analyzing the poem is almost a
poem in itself.  They want the poet to shove over and get out of the
way.  I'm often amazed at the acuity and coherence of academic study
of the poem, I don't do that myself, but bow to the talent of others.

9. Is poetry just a closed circuit? Do poets dance? Do their poems dance?

I love Bob Marley.  I mean LOVE.  I am going to write an ice-skating
routine for "Buffalo Soldier."

10. What has a DJ 'scratcher' to do with poetry?

I'm looking forward to your findings on this, Rupert.

Mairead