----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: three poems
> Ha, I agree, & add that your irony (if not sarcasm) is in full flight
> here, Fred.
>
> But I wasn't sure if Nerdrum was just a terrific invention, as name, as
> this painter, or, as Max indicates, 'real.' Works both ways I think.
>
> Can none of us talk to such as 'The Relatives'? I'm not sure, but do know
> bpNichol would have managed to; he could talk to anyone....
>
> Doug
No, he's quite real - check out his website. A critic once described his
work as "the sets for 'Mad Max' as done by Rembrandt.'" The incident of the
student's painting, and his angry repudiation of "art" in favor of "Kitsch"
(see his "On Kitsch"), are also real. He's one of three painters with whom
I feel a special affinity; the others are Beckmann and Phil Guston. I'm
very glad you feel "Girl in White" works even if one doesn't know N's work;
I worried about that.
As for talking to The Relatives - sure, you can talk to them. Every Western
capitalist nation has that "pidgin" that allows speakers to ignore
differences of class, education, interest, and ideology. One can even be
charming in this pidgin; I'm sure nichols could be. The problem is it
doesn't communicate much. As soon as one says something the other doesn't
already know or believe, it breaks down; because one is then in the position
of having to *teach something and Relatives don't want to be taught. They
regard it as demeaning. The poem isn't about a particular wake but about
class warfare, or warfare involving differences in cultural capital (which
is complexly related to the other kind). My whole aim as a poet is to press
on raw nerves, and in the US these differences are the rawest nerve of all.
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