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BRITISH-IRISH-POETS  1998

BRITISH-IRISH-POETS 1998

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Subject:

RE: factualities

From:

[log in to unmask] (cris cheek)

Reply-To:

[log in to unmask] (cris cheek)

Date:

Sun, 22 Nov 1998 23:40:30 +0000

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Hi all,

coming back home after a ludicrous spin of a week, at the end of which
Miles Champion had asked me what had happened under this subject heading
and we'd had a lengthy head to head about it. I'm glad that the issues are
broadening. But as they do so, it would seem that the field of discussions
becomes murkier.

But there is an historical context that might be worth remembering in that
time of 'artist-led' initiatives. The Poetry Society was temporarily run by
poets. At a time that its contemporaries in innovative approaches to music
had set up the London Musicians Collective, in film there was the London
Film-makers Coop, in new dance there was the X6 Collective, Camerawork in
photography. Each an artist-led organisational structure. I belive the
POetry Society of this period belongs alongside them. Each had a magazine
too, 'Musics' (leter Contexts), 'Readings', 'Camerawork', 'New Dance'. This
is no coincidence.

Yet, none of the others achieved sufficient quality of threat to the
'mainstream' in contradistinction to which it emerged, to be considered in
need of quashing. Except for the Poetry Society that is. I don't suggest
this in any sense other than that it is curious how much of a threat what
took place at the Poetry Society must have been seen, in order to order an
investigation headed by a member of that august body, the House of Lords
(Sir John Witt) and pushed through from the top at the Arts Council
(Charles Osborne). Could it be that what was dangerous about the Poetry
Society at that time was exactly what Andrew Duncan, according to Doug,
criticises it for failing? Namely some provocative, and if we are to
measure it by the reaction presumably at least partially successful,
experiments in the democratisation of new writing in poetry. Why was the
Poetry Society singled out? What was it about the poetry and the stance
towards poetry that rendered it the subject of such vicious attack (which
appears to be continuing)?

ADs critique implies that something other than a 'retreat' was a
possibility. (How long did it take the party left to recover under the same
politcal imperatives? Has it recovered?) But was what took place in fact a
retreat or an abandonment of fallow ground? Do such arguments not play into
redundantly binary concepts of centre and margin?

You see, you might, I might, argue in favour of a process of necessary
dispersal from centre that this unwittingly effected. The beginnings of
essential de-centralisation. The result, today, is the emergence of
increasingly robust trans-local networks. Poised to take advantage.
Probably not what Charles Osborne had in mind.

A key assemblage then in Doug's paraphrase of AD's focus lies, as Bill
Griffiths suggests, in the application of 'democratic' to 'experimental'
and 'poetry'. These are not comfortable bedfellows. In what ways can
experimental poetry be democratic? Are we talking about Chris Smith's
liking for a 'people's poet' or Blair avowed preference for a 'peoples'
poet' as laureate? If we're going to talk about democracy as not being a
manufacture of consent, if we're talking about it as an experiment then I'm
getting interested.

How might a democratically experimental poetry work? Might it for example,
dispell problems of mysticism by revealing its process, by composing work
which explores ways to maximise the empowerment of the reader? Might it
suggest that poetry be publicly available, not merely in books but on
billboards, on television etcetera? Which language might it be written in?
What values might it embody? Might it not provide access to facilities and
resources by which anybody might bring their poems into print? Might it not
seek to provide links between contemporary 'experimental' approaches and
those of the past?

Sounds a little like the Poetry Society in the mid 1970s, doesn't it?

hmmmm

For the record the LFMC is now rehoused in the splendid Lux cinema in
HOxton Square, alongside London Film and Video Arts. X6 became Chisenhale
(something yours truly was actively involved with the development of for
almost a decade), still operating in Bow. The LMC runs its annual festival,
the magazine 'Resonance' and is increasingly dabbling in mainstream venue
programming (i do not mention that perjoratively). Camerawork is still
going.

The Poetry Society was placed back into the 'safe' hands of bureaucrats.
One of the main criticisms levelled at it, in my memory, was its
over-reliance on 'volunteers'. Nowadays though arts organisations are
praised for any involvement they can secure from 'volunteers'. Plus ca
change

love and love
cris






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