Tim,
I take your point, and it makes sense historically. But surely it can’t
account for all Black and Asian poets writing today? I know you’re not
saying this, but it could be seen that way.
Peter mentioned Sascha Akhtar, who I’m not familiar with—if Peter’s
assessment of her poetry is accurate, then she'd be someone who
doesn’t fit into your account…and there may be others, too.
Rupert Mallin said, in response to my post on this a few months back,
that it was partly to do with the middle-class nature of the university
system, and that avant-garde poets tended to be products of this. I
don’t know how demographically accurate that is in 2010, but I suspect
there's some truth in it.
Maybe, Rupert could expand on this.
Dave
On Sun, 7 Mar 2010 15:46:31 +0000, Tim Allen <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>Hi Geraldine and David - I've just dug this out of the old mail back
>in October.
>Tim
>
>"... a large incentive behind all kinds of avant poetry is the desire
>to escape, transcend or play with our notions of identity, whereas the
>general tendency in black and asian writing has been from the other
>direction, the search to define and find a more stable identity. The
>reasons for these different approaches are pretty obvious. A similar
>thing happened with regard to the main thrust of British feminist
>writing where the desire to identify and explore female identity was
>much stronger than the desire to jump out of it. These rifts appeared
>first back in the late 60's and early 70's but, as i've said before,
>didn't really gain strength until the 80's, by which time the
>differences between 'expansive' poetry (what a lot of avant stuff
>sometimes got called then) and mainstream cliche were clear and
just
>about unbridgeable. The fact that so much 'identity' driven poetry
>drove itself (or was driven by the patronizing establishment) into
>cliche was a tragedy. The ways in which identity poetics were readily
>available to be taken-in by the mainstream - and became a huge and
>healthy part of that mainstream - had their negative image in the
ways
>in which the identity-fleeing poetry of the avant garde was able to be
>dismissed, and even accused of being anti-people etc in the process."
>
>On 5 Mar 2010, at 17:12, Geraldine Monk wrote:
>
>> Yes, I remember you did an exceptionally insightful response to
this
>> very question Tim, maybe you could dig it up and repost it?
>>
>> G
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Tim Allen
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Sent: Friday, March 05, 2010 4:29 PM
>> Subject: Re: Infinite Difference, sampler no. 8
>>
>> I had an answer David.
>>
>> Tim A.
>> On 5 Mar 2010, at 13:02, David Lace wrote:
>>
>> > Well said, Peter. I mentioned something along those lines in
>> > relation to
>> > other “minority” poets, here, a few months ago, and not many
people
>> > could find an answer.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Thu, 4 Mar 2010 13:59:43 +0000, Peter Riley
>> > <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Why is someone like Sascha Akhtar (and there are others) not
>> invited
>> >> to something like The Brighton Poetry Festival (and others
>> similar)?
>> >> Why is it almost entirely white? (one exception on current list
>> of 20
>> >> poets) (At the old CCCP Dave Marriott used to be our staple
>> > exception)
>> >>
>> >> Why on the other hand is someone like Sascha Atkhar so
welcome and
>> >> rewarded in the "mainstream" area when she doesn't, it seems
to me,
>> >> really write like that? But the same people will not invite British
>> >> poets writing in a mode at all similar to hers.
>> >>
>> >> Does it occur to anyone that there is something crazy or stupid
>> going
>> >> on?
>> >>
>> >> PR
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On 4 Mar 2010, at 12:09, Carrie Etter wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Sascha Akhtar's "The Sufi": http://carrieetter.blogspot.com
>> >>
>> >> Just two more posts before the launch of Infinite Difference:
Other
>> >> Poetries by UK Women Poets in London on the tenth of March....
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
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