I'm conscious that our list is dominated by references to some _British_
poets that emerged in the 60s. I was shocked to see those poets referred
to as the British avante-garde. They're not, and we don't really have
one. Although, if this were it, Sam Goldwyn's (?) remark springs to
mind, "Gentleman, include me out." I remember Joseph Brodsky remarking
once that he had spent most of his life leaving things. We're not
British anymore for that matter, which does present an anomaly for the
list, as we have often encountered.

As for Mr Prynne, his work (fascinating, inchoate, brilliant and
minatory by turns) belongs to history now, he's certainly no grandee of
a national movement. As a resident _Cambridge_ poet I'm afraid I cannot
cite him as an influence, and my (infrequent) reading of him is largely
coloured by Tristan Tzara or Antonin Artaud, altogether more arresting
historical figures. Now there's a thesis.

You might be forgiven at times for thinking that the only thing
happening in these isles worth discussion appeared in the pages of A
Various Art (that valuable attempt at inclusiveness, at broadening the
academic canon) and that book's rediscovery of forgotten poets of the
Sixties. We have however moved on into the 90s . . . the late Nineties
at that. I welcome the attempts of young poets (me included) to rob the
work of this older generation, but we mustn't confuse this with the need
for lecturers, Fellows, Masters even, to keep the _exagamination_ (cf
Buckett, Travesties of Justice: Clov meets Mystic Meg) going as part of
securing one's contract. The list sometimes reads like a revivalist
meeting of the cardigan and slippers brigade, a sad Sixties pub night.
You can sometimes really _feel_ the effort of the eccentricity of the
views. Sense those neckerchiefs, sandals, satchels.

We may of course _wish_ for an avante-garde. I think at times we're all
trying to create one, and that's healthy, but it is funny that if one
emerged it would be reacting to the occasional pomposity of this list.
The postings smack of a kind of throw back to those halcyon days when we
thought we would overturn the establishment and encrypt the nation in
the denial of singular meaning. I mean, really! Free everyone into the
endless sea of possibility and the triumph of the orphaned text. Of
course, most of the list now _is_ the establishment and depends upon
such constructs. I bet most of the list is over 40. 50? (Tut! tut! So
ageist!)

All these illicit meetings in beer kellars, hatred of the _mainstream_,
samizdat editions, pamphlets and radicalism. Sometimes I think, like
christians, there's a need for feeling persecuted to maintain the faith.
But it's all so tainted with the realities of academic life: conferences
and seminars, syllabi and canons. Running the same old courses, munching
through another year of bods reading John Grisham novels. Oh god, not
another essay on "Basil Bumscrape and the Cantos of Isiah Lumpfish".

We are though, are we not, purporting that the more vocal members of the
list and its _Names_ (it's not quite a tribe is it? too small in number)
represent an undercurrent of experimentation we've nearly lost amongst
our brightest English, Welsh, Irish and Scottish poets. Well I don't
know, let's add some other names (if we are keeping pets) off the top of
my head: Knight, Holland, Maxwell, McKendrick, Paterson, Romer, Copus,
Hofmann, Jamie, Greenlaw, Rollinson, Hill (Tobias). You'd be forgiven
for thinking that these people didn't exist. Of course most of these
poets are lucid and ludic, so we might want to exclude them for their
sins. (How many of our international guests have heard these names?)
This is a mixed bag, not all the work is successful, but these people
are exciting. Check them out.

Where language is concerned it's more interesting to consider the 800
million speakers of English as our stomping ground than ten sixties
has-beens. (Only joking. Bet you don't get it, though.) So I vote for
broadening the camp as well. Just a little beyond this sceptred isle.
Most of all, let's not be so bloody boring, reverential, cheesy and
back-slappingly insular.

Have fun! (Apologies in advance of being flamed.)

--
All the best,

Chris

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Christopher Emery



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