Dear Geraldine and all,

The main point I tried to address is my post was audience, and I think
you also address that point here.  "Deep & savage irony" tends to have
a local context.  So what you present ironically may be received with
bafflement or even repulsion by someone outside that context.  I know
the sort of joking (scathing) approach I grew up with in Ireland was
one of the first things to go when I emigrated: people just didn't get
it and it was offensive to them.  Because there is so much cultural
difference here, and a history of that, and also a history of people
making their way in second languages, communication tends to be more
circumspect, reliant on agreed norms of politeness, neutral maybe. 
For some Irish people, it may seem very anodyne or antiseptic, though
it has sound cultural reasons.  Likewise, some Americans would find
Irish styles of communication quite insulting.  The point I tried to
make, Geraldine, is partly that the membership here is quite mixed
nationality-wise, so you can't presume that a message will be received
as you intend. Irony, like humor, is very culturally based, and
doesn't always travel.  But you're speaking to someone who believes
Swift was more or less in earnest in "A Modest Proposal."

The funding issue is also a really significant difference.  I suppose
I think if some agency is willing to give me money then I will do what
it wants, within reason.  Generally though I have very little
relationship with funding bodies.  I did have in Ireland, and I well
remember my dealings with the Arts Council during work with two
plays/production companies, and later as the manager of the Butler
Gallery in Kilkenny Castle, and the artistic director of the Belltable
Arts Centre in Limerick.  I'm not discounting the right to be angry
with funding bodies, though I would like to say that the Arts Councils
and arts funding in Ireland and England are probably an awful lot
better than arts funding of any kind here.  We had a turnover of about
300,000 (punts) when I was at the Belltable, about 80,000 of that came
from the Arts Council, and Arts Council funding was our bedrock.  When
I look back at it now, knowing how inadequate it was, and knowing how
inadequate the Arts Council budget was in the first place,  I think we
were also fortunate to be able to engage in such concentrated arts
activity.  I don't see anything comparable here.

Universities do not take the place of arts councils here.  By and
large universities pay poets/artists for teaching and being active
members of a faculty, participating in committees, governance, etc. 
They do not generally help poets publish, or fund publishing houses. 
So poets can get jobs teaching poetry; I think this happens in the UK
too, no?  This doesn't really relate to the argument in hand, as far
as I can see.

There actually aren't an abundance of prizes and awards for any poets here.  
I'm chuffed as hell to have gotten one recently, for the first time in
my life, anywhere: maybe enough to publish one book.

I'm not saying, Geraldine, your anger against WMA is not justified. 
I'm saying I don't really know who or what WMA is but I'm learning and
please don't shout at me meanwhile.  If I start talking about RISCA
(Rhode Island State Council on the Arts) to you, I won't expect you to
share in my contumely (though actually I don't have any at the
moment).  And yes, this is British & Irish Poets and British & Irish
poetry is correctly the focus, but there are British & Irish Poets all
over the world, and British & Irish poetry too.

But I think all the points I'm trying to make have been just as well
made by Geraldine anyway.  British & Irish Poets is a list with
members scattered throughout the English-speaking world.  It is a
fantastic privilege to be able to learn about how poetry publishing
works in the UK, and I am learning a lot here.  I'm glad that the list
is porous in the sense that information can flow back and forth.  It's
not cosy and it's not homogeneous and in my view that's just fine.

I don't agree with your last point: "You surely can't get less racist
than saying we don't give a damn who or what you are."  I think it
takes a long time to get to know anything.  I've been doing research
for a few years on Frederick Douglass (escaped slave and abolitionist
writer) in Ireland and England, 1845-1847.  I started with the
starkest juxtapositions, especially with regard to Douglass as an
escaped slave in Ireland at the time of the "Great Famine."  Every
little thing I learn causes an adjustment in my first gross
understanding.  I'm sure there are many elements of racism in my own
education and imagination.  I think information and steady knowledge
can challenge them a little.  So I'd be happier saying: "I care a
great deal who and what you are.  Tell me about it.  I'll do my best
to listen."  I think it's damned hard to learn about someone else's
difference because our own gloss, our own inherited way of looking at
things, goes on top of everything.  The greatest thing about research,
for me, is being able to revise and learn a little; I think it's quite
a conscious effort but worth it, to be able to tinker with my own
thinking and make more sense.  Forgive me if I am not successful.

Mairead



On 8/22/05, Geraldine Monk <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Well I can certainly see a colossal breakdown in cultural difference if
> Paul's 'identikit' proposal wasn't read with that deep and savage irony that
> passes for humour in England.  That's how I read because that's how it was
> intended.  And I also second Paul's second post. 
>  
> Anyway with all this bafflement going on I can only conclude that the
> subtleties and ultimate common sense of my argument has been totally lost
> and I'm at a loss how to say it more plainly.  I have said in almost every
> post on this matter that I fully champion anything that will encourage
> ANYONE including the young the ethnic the minorities,  into writing poetry. 
> Why is this baffling?
>  
> HOWEVER my argument is and has been from the start that there are sensible
> ways to go about this and there are brainless ways to go about this.  And a
> blanket diktat from WMA that ALL presses, no matter what their aesthetic,
> should now include young ethnic poets is one of the more brainless
> suggestions.  THIS IS NOT A RACIST COMMENT!!!!!!  Now if you really take on
> board what I have said in past letters, like holding workshops, or the WMA
> funding a magazine with specific intent to highlight young talented writers,
> or targeting presses that may best accommodate specific writers then that's
> constructive.  But their proposal isn't constructive it's dumb and it's
> sinister.  
>  
> You don't believe me? O.K. Here's some more of the infamous conversation
> Glenn had the WBA.
>  
> Glenn 'My only criteria for publishing something is literary quality'
>  
> WMA person:  Literary quality is of no interest to me whatsoever'
>  
> Straight from the horses mouth!  In other words they don't give a shit if
> your young ethic poet is a load a crap as long as your poet is young and
> ethnic.  Now, as writers, if you don't find that outrageous, from a body
> purporting to support the arts , I think you should. It's  an abomination. 
> It's also a staggering display of patronising, condescension towards young
> ethnic minorities that really could be construed as racist.  
>  
> Both Mairead and Susan seem to imply in their letters that they love
> cultural integration and Paul and I are against it.  Nothing could be
> further from the truth.  But we don't live in just a culturally integrated
> society we also live in a multicultural society and the two are not the same
> thing.  
>  
> O.K. now, I'll give you an example of what I mean.  Sheffield Poetry
> International.   Despite the fact that the first 3 readings where held in a
> multicultural cafe which is heavily frequented by all types, ages and races
> during the day not one member of the audience (and we got big audiences) was
> of black or ethnic origins - not even for our black writer.   Why?  Search
> me.  It was disappointing but was it our fault?  I don't know what more we
> could have done to make everyone welcome.   Now that's multiculturalism for
> you - people follow their own (not the indigenous) culture.  And why should
> they like or listen to 'experimental' poetry fer god's sake!!  (I'd like to
> convince them they'd like to do so but I'd like to do that to the community
> as a whole - it isn't that easy).  
>  
> And saying it isn't that easy brings me to my last point.  Mairead, yes we
> do have arts council's here and it's necessary because we don't have the
> university set-up that you have in America for creative writers nor the
> prize and awards for people of our ilk (they're strictly 'only mainstream
> poets from a small handful of accredited presses need apply'. ) 
>  
> So the Art's Council is the only way most writers have of financing projects
> - or going out to work and ploughing your own money into projects which
> unless you're on a good screw is very limiting.  And that brings me to my
> very very last point.  There is a striking difference between you/Susan and
> me/Paul/Glenn and that is that you both work in universities with a flow of
> bright young things of all ethnic backgrounds passing through  and we don't.
>  We live in the English provinces and go out to get the morning paper or go
> to work and probably met the same people day in day out without flux or
> influx.  We just don't have that ease of access that you have.  We come
> across other poets through magazines and other grapevine outlets.  And we
> don't care or even ask what age, colour, sex, background they're from if we
> like their stuff we like it.  That's how most small presses in England run. 
> They run for the love of poetry.   Now you  may think this is wrong but we
> are poets not a race relations officers.  You surely can't get less racist
> than saying we don't give a damn who or what you are.  
>  
> Cheers,
> Geraldine
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
> Geraldine Monk
> www.westhousebooks.co.uk