So you think it’s snobbish for literary fiction to be housed differently from SF ? Everything in Waterstone’s should be lodged in alphabetical order, regardless of genre?
Personally I wouldn’t house the avant poetry away from the mainstream poetry, because (q.e.d. already) the divide isn’t clear. And in any event it’s not worth dividing the half shelf that most shops devote to it. I have work that I regard as “mainstream” (or at the very least, not “avant”) on my list. Judging by the reactions some of those books get from reviewers my understanding of the term may be off. What do I know? I just publish stuff I admire and think deserves an audience.
Tony
> On 1 Feb 2018, at 18:12, David Lace <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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> I just find it needlessly divisive and snobby. It just needlessly creates the potential for the avantgarde/mainstream controversy to spill out into other areas of poetry. I appreciate that as a bookseller classification is your thing, but it's bad for poetry.
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> —————original message—————
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> Tony Frazer wrote:
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> OK, the dig is fine. It doesn’t bother me.
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> Is there anything particularly, or inherently, bad about an attempt at a more accurate designation of certain types of poetry? Or writing? (See previous comments re the accepted sub-classifications of fiction.) I’ve not seen any rationale for that being the case. I recognise that it’s not going to happen, and there’s been enough discussion here this week regarding the vexed mainstream/avant divide to show why, but i can’t see why it raises your hackles in this way.
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> Tony
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