To take up Keston's other points, after his elegy for
John Forbes on Saturday, about covers again:
> Diogenes lived in the city
> he hated (masturbated in its streets, harangued its
worthies)
Yes, but that assumes Diogenes assumes he has some
ruling class hopes, not necessarily as part of a
democracy or group endeavour, but as a *leader*;
or at least that his disappointment in leaders
indicates a hope for leaders, and leaders in
language style and decorum at that (not leaders
in keeping freedom in action for all, as near
as possible, as Bunting said of the Seyjuks'
civic order, I think, from memory). His
publicity-gaining efforts to gain celebrity
for himself and his position only merit an
all-or-nothing shock tactic (a position from
which dialectic is impossible, as anyone
trying to play *music* to an audience brought
up in punk may opine; *music* as poetry as
beauty, not the riff behind the rant).
So "What kind of cheerful passivity would insinuate
a responsible alternative?" What's "responsible" to
one is not to me if we disagree over how to lead or
support leadership towards civic order, if we disagree over
whether it is in language or action. Incidentally,
some of us might class cheerful passivity as love,
or patience, or a long term response with all its
initial resistances, and curve of responses, with,
even, rejection returning at stages (Peter's review
of Barry's book indicates such reservations to my
mind).
>Still, the cover's despicable trash.
But is it? On the subject, what of one Keston
Sutherland's pamphlet cover that includes disembodied
photo close-ups of women's genitals culled from
porn magazines (or was that just Ankle press?)?
I would as rather take the garish announcement
of recovering from alcoholism, with all its problems
of being simplified into something "despicable", than
take the garish presentation of these photos or
the celebration of Diogenes' masturbating in the
streets or indeed the line about "earth falling
from the anus" dropped cold into one of the poems
Keston posted on this list last year as in no danger
of being simplified into something "despicable".
But I happen to know that's my taste. And, actually,
I'm interested in the fact that this discussion
has brought up the Diogenes' quote, as it helps
me contextualise Keston's protests, and see them
in a way that seems interesting, rather than
merely sentimental goings through an old cliche,
which I believe is what some might feel after
enjoying the poetry rather than the pathos of
Book of Demons; and what others might feel about
the use of the demonic energy of B McS's earlier
work, to set demons against demons, and might
make them more ready to read this stage of his
rebarbative work: to see that rebarbativeness
as a resource, a vitality, not just an agressiveness
that marks out the poet as resister but doesn't
seem to extend to a comradeship of resisters,
is not about freedom but the will to a better
tyranny.
> The remarks about being bigger than the other guy's, I
don't understand.
>
For someone who writes such inspissated writing, Keston,
I'm surprised. I'm just following threads backwards
and forwards too; a larger quote: "correcting sounds like
cleansing, even in this small ethnicity, waiting
to get bigger than the other guy's". If Diogenes/Keston
is correcting mistakes, this has the problems with
the Diogenes' position I outline above; it is a position
that wants to be leader *instead*, thus those who are
only "harangued" when Diogenes has no power, may find
themselves more hurt if the Diogenes guy's power gets
bigger (oooh, I used a sexual innuendo too, but I
think Diogenes would handle this, or would he, would
he like others' masturbating too, especially for
different projects, and with different critiques
of the worthies?). "Every revolution must have
casualties", would Diogenes in power say?
Ira
Keston wrote:
> No -C-ynic would doze off at the front cover; Diogenes
lived in the city
he hated (masturbated in its streets, harangued its
worthies) just as when
wholly unprepared to indulge optimism, you can read a book
thoroughly and
emerge with a related but distinguishable contempt for its
cover intact.
What kind of cheerful passivity would insinuate a
responsible alternative?
"The poetry's good, so who cares?"? We can have a
conversation about BM's
poetry, sure. Still, the cover's despicable trash.
The remarks about being bigger than the other guy's, I don't
understand.
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