“Since you're keen to make distinctions between poetry and prose, I'd
have thought these things might have interested you more.”
My point in such comparisons is to point out the contrast between the
lexical differences rather than the formal ones. Bad poetry can rhyme
also you know, so the presence of technique shouldn’t always be the
deciding factor for quality.
“Thanks for the Ward song - but I found it almost unbearably
schmaltzy.”
And you didn’t Armitage’s poem?!
“Speaking of suppositions, why do you assume "simple, non-avant-
garde language" would please me? I don't think I've ever stated such a
preference.”
Perhaps not expressly, but your vigorous defense of the Armitage poem,
here, and, at other times, mainstream poetry in general has led me to
believe this. If I’m wrong, my apologies.
On Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:01:08 -0000, Jamie McKendrick
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Jeff,
> I fear you haven't really considered my point about technique - that
sound
>and rhythm are not decorative extras for a poem but integral to it.
Since
>you're keen to make distinctions between poetry and prose, I'd have
thought
>these things might have interested you more. As for the poem's
imagery, I've
>already said why I think it works.
> Thanks for the Ward song - but I found it almost unbearably
schmaltzy. It
>is not at all on a similar theme and it's linguistically inept, though
>despite his reverential mention of Wordswoth and Browning "who all
seem to
>be saying the same thing" I don't suppose he'd think it was a poem.
Speaking
>of suppositions, why do you assume "simple, non-avant-garde
language" would
>please me? I don't think I've ever stated such a preference.
>Jamie
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Jeffrey Side" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 4:11 PM
>Subject: Re: Response to my criticisms of Armitage's poetry
>
>
>Jamie, technique in itself does not make a poem. It is the combination
>of that with imagery, allusion, metonymy, a certain mystery, etc. The
>Armitage poem has little of the latter aspects. That’s why I am
>criticising it. I find the poem’s sentiments and execution of them one-
>dimensional.
>
>If you want to hear a better rendition of a similar theme then listen to
>Clifford T. Ward’s song“Home Thoughts from Abroad” which does it
>better, in simple, non-avant-garde language (which should please
you).
>Here is a link to it on YouTube:
>
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9G0ENZJLI8
>
>
>
>
>
>On Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:49:50 -0000, Jamie McKendrick
><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>Jeff,
>> I'm not sure why what I've written should seem " mostly technical
>points"
>>or exactly what it would mean if they were.
>> Surely technique, in which sound-effects play a large part, should
be
>>relevant in describing why it's a poem rather than "perhaps, good
prose
>>fiction" as you call it. I've also mentioned a complex of imagery that
is
>>tightly worked, and to spell out a bit more what I called the vaporous
>>elements in the poem, the 'st' sounds which begin with "missed"
>(homophone
>>'mist'), which leads to 'steam' in the next line, then is heard again in
>>just, dust, lipstick, lost, upstairs, understanding, lipstick,
>>stowed...just
>>to take one thread of sound through the poem (and there are
others) -
>>suggest to me that Armitage has, even at this very early stage of his
>>writing an acoustic sense that can be a central part of the way we
>hear a
>>whole poem - rather than a mere technical point, or even as "the
>measure of
>>poetic accomplishment" which you bring out of nowhere. What I'd
>argue is
>>that these are effects, including the rhythmic ones which (I agree
with
>>Robin) are a marked and positive aspect of Armitage's work, that
>make a flat
>>paraphrase an utterly insufficient means of describing (and
>intentionally
>>negating) the poem. This poem or any other. It seems to me that
your
>>obsessive concentration on 'empirical markers' means you ignore a
>whole
>>range of other features integral to a poem.
>> (Your Jacket article makes it clear, as I'd guessed all along, that
your
>>zealotry on behalf of this term "empirical" is deeply indebted to
>Easthope,
>>in particular to his dim and philistine reading of Edward Thomas's
>>'Aldlestrop'. But perhaps we oughtn't to get into that again.)
>>Jamie
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Jeffrey Side" <[log in to unmask]>
>>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 12:23 PM
>>Subject: Re: Response to my criticisms of Armitage's poetry
>>
>>
>>Jamie, these seem mostly technical points you like about the poem.
>But
>>the poem is still like a thousand other poems expressing similar
>>sentiments. It is, perhaps, good prose fiction writing; the sort that is
>>esteemed in some creative writing classes, but is this to be
considered
>>the measure of poetic accomplishment?
>>
>>
>>On Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:55:09 -0000, Jamie McKendrick
>><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>>It's a poem written when Armitage, I'm guessing, was 25, or
younger.
>>There's less fizz and word play in it than in many of the poems of his
>>first book: it's quieter and maybe not that ambitious. That said, I like
>>the vaporous sweep of the poem from its first image of
>>what's "missed...by moments" , the steam of the "just-boiled kettle"
>to
>>the final images of "the air, still hung with spores of your hairspray;/
>>body-heat stowed in the crumpled duvet."
>>> The lines:
>>> "and in this space we have worked and paid for
>>> we have found ourselves and lost each other"
>>>stand out for me, and I think will have "cost" something to write.
>>> Its handling of the pentametre looks to me more
than "adequately"
>>skillful, as does the subtle "st" and "sp" sound-patterning that runs
>>through it
>>>
>>> It's easy to make a crushing equivalence between the domestic
>and
>>the bourgeois, but most of us live our lives in domestic settings and
>>interiors, and I see no dishonour in their inclusion in a poem. As
both a
>>love poem and a poem about a relationship in crisis, I think it has a
>>kind of tenderness and integrity.
>>> (I doubt, though, that this account will tear Robin away from his
>>admiration for David's post and the "specific points" he has
somewhere
>>found in his and Mark's dismissals.)
>>>Jamie
>>>
>>>----- Original Message -----
>>> From: Mark Weiss
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 11:11 PM
>>> Subject: Re: Response to my criticisms of Armitage's poetry
>>>
>>>
>>> And aren't paid for.
>>>
>>> At 06:02 PM 2/16/2010, you wrote:
>>>
>>> "How's that?"
>>> I'd say it did quite well on the nastiness scale.
>>> Though it doesn't distinguish itself from 20,000 other bits
>>of "criticism" posted every day that cost nothing to write.
>>> Jamie
>>>
>>>
>>> From: Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Sent: Tuesday, 16 February, 2010 22:51:43
>>> Subject: Re: Response to my criticisms of Armitage's poetry
>>>
>>> Shall I try? Probably 20,000 poems a day are posted or
published.
>>Most are skillful and nothing more. Most take no risks whatsoever.
>Most
>>want to be liked. Most are crashingly boring. This is one of those.
>>>
>>> The problem is, this sort of waste makes it harder to fight
through
>>to find the good stuff, the stuff that's cost the poet something to
write
>>and that will cost the reader something to read.
>>>
>>> How's that?
>>>
>>> At 05:46 PM 2/16/2010, you wrote:
>>>
>>> >It's adequate. Could I be nastier?
>>> I dunno, Mark. Could you be?
>>> Jamie
>>>
>>> Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry
>>(University of California Press).
>>> http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
>>>
>>> "Not since the 1982 publication of Paul Auster's Random House
>>Book of Twentieth Century French Poetry has a bilingual anthology so
>>effectively broadened the sense of poetic terrain outside the United
>>States and also created a superb collection of foreign poems in
>English.
>>There is nothing else like it." John Palattella in The
>>Nation
>>> Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry
>>(University of California Press).
>>> http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
>>>
>>> "Not since the 1982 publication of Paul Auster's Random House
>Book
>>of Twentieth Century French Poetry has a bilingual anthology so
>>effectively broadened the sense of poetic terrain outside the United
>>States and also created a superb collection of foreign poems in
>English.
>>There is nothing else like it." John Palattella in The
>>Nation
>>>
>>>
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