Hi Tim - just to be clear, my response was to comments in the essay,
not to your post. Sorry for the confusion.

xA

On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 11:21 PM, Tim Allen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Sorry Alison, but I really don't know what you are saying here, or what
> exactly you are picking me up on. I never said anything about the
> celebration of English identity or multiculturalism.
> Yes, i agree that part of the purpose behind Armstrong's piece seems to be a
> desire to promote himself at someone else's expense. I just happen to think
> it raises some interesting points, and important points too with regards to
> Brit poetry, even if I don't like the way he's done it, and I certainly
> disagree with much of what he says.
>
> I know that Bunting is very important for a lot of people and, as I said, he
> seems to be particularly important to the writing of many poets that I
> really admire. And I think the issues around the debate between musicality
> and meaning are on-going and important. Ric Caddel's work was a wonderful
> example of that debate taken further down the line and it probably climaxes
> in the work of Maggie O'Sullivan whose extraordinary poetry still polarises
> opinion. I just don't happen, personally, to have ever got much from
> Bunting, and yes, I am always suspicious of myth making and icon raising
> within poetry, whoever it is, Prynne, or whoever. And MacSweeney was for me
> a marvelously up-and-down writer - when he nailed it his stuff was
> wonderful, but I have been critical of his later work, some of which was
> sloppy and engrandised.
>
> My comment about the irritant of the regional thing does tend to trivialize
> what is a very complicated set of interlocking issues, I admit that.
>
> Happy Christmas
>
> Tim A.
>
> On 22 Dec 2009, at 22:13, Alison Croggon wrote:
>
>> Belatedly caught up with this (and thanks Lucy for your post). Tim,
>> you don't think the "celebration of English identity" and the hauling
>> in of the multicultural straw dummy is suspect? At a distance, it
>> reads like the bullshit nationalist rhetoric that here ends up getting
>> people bashed. Enough to raise a few flags for me.
>>
>> Is it poets who make these myths, or, as in Peter's example, the
>> publicists/mediating persons who occasionally get in there and write
>> about them, and, as my journalistic colleagues used to say, "never let
>> the facts get in the way of a good story"?
>>
>> I share Armstrong's admiration for Brecht and a certain impatience
>> with the inward-looking nature of poetry culture. But certainly the
>> guy has a few chips on his shoulders, and I'm not sure it's Bunting's
>> fault. I don't share his distaste, though it's true that Bunting, in
>> common with a lot of poets, could be uncomfortably misogynist.  Like
>> Mark, I feel there is something yukky about bashing another poet to
>> promote your own verse.
>>
>> xA
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 3:58 AM, Tim Allen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>> This is an important piece, whatever our particular take on Bunting might
>>> be. I agree with Mark that Peter Riley's response to the Hall programme
>>> and
>>> the problems arising from it was a pretty fair one. The myth making
>>> around
>>> that scene has been an irritant to many of us and in my opinion it has
>>> actually helped damage the reputation of MacSweeney, instead of promoting
>>> it. I have never shared the Brit avant garde's enthusiasm for and
>>> elevation
>>> of Bunting - his work does very little for me, and that famous
>>> 'recording'
>>> even less - the problem is that I really like the work of most of those
>>> who
>>> say they are influenced by him, with the exception of Pickard, who failed
>>> on
>>> so many levels to live up to his early promise. I have to say that I
>>> really
>>> object to Keith Armstrong's treating of MacSweeney and Pickard in
>>> parallel,
>>> there is just no comparison, quality wise, between the two. Barry's work
>>> had
>>> its faults but they become pretty meaningless when judged against his
>>> brilliance.
>>>
>>> There is a circumstantial reason for Bunting being pounced on as an icon
>>> by
>>> some sections of the Brit avant garde: he could directly link regional
>>> English oppositional poetry to the heritage of high modernism. I think
>>> there
>>> was a certain desperation in that, but nevertheless his notion of the
>>> music
>>> of poetry, which went against the grain of the way Brit mainstream poetry
>>> was heading ever since WW2, found a genuine constituency, and that is
>>> where
>>> I think any discussion of his poetry and how it differs becomes
>>> important.
>>>
>>> Tim A.
>>>
>>> On 20 Dec 2009, at 18:13, David Lace wrote:
>>>
>>>> "NORTH EAST POETRY:  DEBUNKING SOME MYTHS" by Keith Armstrong
>>>> (Discussion of Bunting and other North East poets as overrated)
>>>>
>>>> http://www.pennilesspress.co.uk/annexe/north_east_poetry.htm
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Editor, Masthead:  http://www.masthead.net.au
>> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>



-- 
Editor, Masthead:  http://www.masthead.net.au
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com