Yes, Jim, I run the risk of sounding offensive.
It relates to my wife the speech therapist saying I show aspy symptoms, and that
it explains the twodimensionality of what I write; and her disappointment
generally in contemporary poetry.
Casting round I see Mark Haddon, whose novel I have yet to read about an aspy
boy, saying in an interview
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/sep/24/poetry.booksforchildrenandteenagers
how his own poetry has been helped by reading Ashbery:
Haddon's Swindon-based detective story
[The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time],
narrated by 15-year-old, low-spectrum Asperger's sufferer Christopher Boone,
whose literal interpretation of the world around him lent the book such a
distinctive voice, should have given the writer such confidence. In the first
three months of publication it sold more than a million copies and went on to
win a hatful of prizes, including the Whitbread book of the year. "When I
finished it I knew it had worked," he says. "But I also thought it was a very
dark book which might have put people off. However, I've now been told so many
times by readers that it is a hugely uplifting story that I've come to accept
it. I think a lot of that comes from the last line in the book - 'I can do
anything'. That always struck me as profoundly ambiguous. Is he deceiving
himself? Or is he on his way to a sparkling career at university? One of the
ways the book works is because it is so spare, people write at least half of it
themselves. And if they've decided it is to be a happy book, that's how they
will read the last line."
Although the book has almost universally been garlanded with praise and prizes,
Haddon has received some complaints, some from Asperger's sufferers, essentially
questioning his right to write about them. "But I've also had letters from
people with Asperger's saying they have shown the book to their families and
friends to explain how they feel, which is obviously been very gratifying even
though I didn't set out to write about Asperger's in those terms."
Of contemporary poets he cites John Ashbery as a liberating influence: "He
offers people the chance to not make sense in the normal way. One of the things
that stimulates me to write poetry is stumbling on bits of language that are
unlike normal language." But his favourite contemporary poets are Don Paterson -
his editor at Picador - and Paul Farley. "Don's poetry is muscular and
intelligent and has an accessible surface but very many layers underneath," he
says. "Paul Farley is really resonant without being at all flashy. There are
strong ideas threaded through it and lines that go into your head that you know
will stick with you for a really, really long time. But I also think if you can
pinpoint what you admire in someone's poetry then what you are looking at is
something simple and shallow. I like poetry when I don't quite understand why I
like it. Poetry isn't just a question of wrapping something up and giving it to
someone else to unwrap. It just doesn't work like that."
At present I am wandering in circles. My wife has just suggested I look up
hyperlexia. No doubt I will be get more confused.
Max
Quoting Jim Bennett <[log in to unmask]>:
> Well I suppose there is some truth in the proposition that Asperger's
> Syndrome
> is associated with the arts. I have a number of acquaintances who, like
> me,
> have Asperger's, (I should explain that we do not suffer with anything, but
> our
> families tend to suffer with our AS), and who write poetry. As for it
> becoming a "humorous polemic" well that jolts a little. Perhaps you could
> focus a polemic on "crips", if perhaps you had a limp once.
>
> Jim
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