David Jones might be another GM who isn't neglected (and, thank
goodness, no longer a local curiosity either) but who isn't read in
such a way that he can either intercede with Modernism or deflect it
enough to have his own possibility of it included. I think he got
better as he got older too, though starting late he was never bad
enough to be noticeable as experiment.
I have great respect for Peter's urging a personal/meditational
mode which uses the subjectedness of its subjectivity as a starting
point - and a non-antagonistic one to boot. The terrestrial can't be
related to at all perhaps (and certainly not airily critiqued) unless
it weighs on us. It's an ideal stance, but one which may in practice
supplement itself (when faced with the excess of non-connections
which then modulate to non-subjections in that world) with whimsy or a
self-referring "wise character". That's not to say important poetry
like Peter's doesn't have value just where it coasts into its own
liability,most good poetry isn't just modest but has something to be
humble about.
My own preference is for an impersonal meditative mode, where the
lack of a fuller persona (however recognisable the rhetoric)
acknowledges a scarcity of connection and subjection in the face of a
terrestrial which can also be empty or a uselessly resourceful
supplement. It gives me another liability to work with, but one which
keeps scarcity as a modesty (in Peter's terms) and as a modulation
before the same sort of receptivity (I hope).
Peter
Peter Larkin
Philosophy & Literature Librarian
University of Warwick Library
Coventry CV4 7AL UK
Tel: 01203 528151 Fax: 01203 524211
Email: [log in to unmask]
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