Surely what you say about avant-garde poets and their relation to the academy is the same as for any other kind of poet. Of course creative writing tutors promote, as far as they are able, what they think are brilliant students. Before CW it was done through personal extra-mural contacts, and still is. If there is a problem, it is the same problem for non-avant-garde poets.
Some avant-garde practices were invented within universities and have never been anywhere else.
Some avant-garde poets claim to scorn the success which is attained through networking, conferences and all that, as a model of a corrupt society. Possibly some non-avant-garde poets do too.
Thanks for clarifying the issue. I missed some earlier contributions, including Tim’s essay. Not being an A-G poet I have little to say.
pr
On 4 Jan 2018, at 1:04 pm, David Lace <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I’m happy to support you, Tim.
Peter, you’ve missed the point. It’s not about what “academic” means and who can rightly be called one. It’s about avantgarde poets employed by academia giving their poetics students an unfair publishing and promoting advantage because they are operating from within academia.
In the list you give Carol Anne Duffy and Simon Armitage aren’t avantgarde poets. The others could or not be learnèd. What does that word mean anyway in this day an age? The point is that avantgarde poets who work in academia (whether they are learnèd or not) have influence and prestige in avantgarde publishing, conferencing and networking circles, which is helpful to them and any of their students whom they choose to promote.
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Peter Riley wrote:
Yes, but are all academics actually “academics”?
Is Tim one? Carol Anne Duffy? Simon Armitage? J.H.Prynne? Keston Sutherland? Robert Sheppard? Peter Hughes? ……
It makes sense to me to think in terms of an older word, “learnèd”. Some poets are learned and some are not and some are half a dozen of one and six of the other. You’re then talking about features of their poetry rather than their income.
P.
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