http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind00&L=BRITISH-POETS&P=R6043&I=-3
"As to the alleged spat at Sparty Lee between JP and myself that I
also keep getting a whiff of, let me set the record straight on that
too. There was no violence . What happened was: I was living in the
hills three or four miles away with my wife and young son, and the
festival, took place at Barry MacSweeney's weekend cottage nearby.
Although called a festival and that term would imply an audience there
was non. As far as I remember the Morden Tower provided the only
audience, and I'm sorry they didn't live up to Jeremy and John's
expectations. "
"Everyone was pissed at the MacSweeney week-end cottage, the
atmosphere was congenial, and all the poets were giving performances
that Jeremy was recording. My son, aged about two got restless at all
the cerebral stuff and began chattering. Jeremy shouted "shut that
fucking kid up" because he was 'spoiling' the recording. I thought the
occasion was more interesting as a human situation (not quite as cosy
as the old folk rollicking round the old piano) and that the
mechanical recording was a side issue. Jeremy and MacSweeney obviously
thought otherwise and so we left. When I got up the hill into my old
Landrover I felt really angry and hurt, as I'd wanted to be there.
Taking off the handbrake, kick-starting the jeep into second gear and
accelerating I said to Connie "fuck him and his machines", and rammed
Jeremy's car which was parked at the bottom of the hill. The front end
was severely damaged and he drove around with it like that for a long
time. That was it. I was stupid and mean to do it, Jeremy and
MacSweeney were bad mannered and precious about 'recording the event
for posterity' sans the whimpering impatience of nippers. "
Roger
On 10/30/06, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> This HAS to be apocryphal! -
>
> 'after the Cambridge Marxist-obscurantist poet Jeremy Prynne told the Newcastle
> poet Tom Pickard to keep his young son quiet during a reading, Pickard went
> outside and smashed his Land Rover into Prynne's half-timbered Morris Oxford
> saloon.'
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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