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Welcome to the club

On 13 May 2018 at 09:12, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Red hot pursuit? I'm sorry, I've no idea what I'm saying anymore.

Cheers,
Luke

On 13 May 2018 at 09:07, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Roque Dalton was keen to be a true Marxist, until his comrades shot him.

Commodification though is boring, and narks me. I have seen so many poets, of the left included, who have turned themselves into a product, a neatly wrapped verbal package. Yawn yawn. What we need is a return to aggressive vitriolic reviewing, it might not help anyonme's writing, but could fool the punters into thinking something is really at stake. Bring back Ian Hamilton from the after hours I mean life, Geoffrey Grigson too, even if it means Jane's cookbooks as well. Most of all, distant Lord, resurrect FR Leavis (with Queenie in hot pursuit of meaning)

Dave

On 13 May 2018 at 02:58, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
If I may add an actual third post in a row?

I wonder how this discussion might link to 'commodification'? We might want to think that, mainstream / or underground, our authentic selves are somehow over and above commodification, even if our behavior, even imagination, is not. I know that some of you are Marxists, and, I assume, better ones than me. So what, then?

Luke

On 12 May 2018 at 23:56, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I was just looking at Ashbery's 'Europe', and was struck by its decisiveness. Does that have anything to do with it? I mean, I think everyone agrees that 'authenticity' is primarily about the self, and its freedom )from?), so that could be one of those good answers, apparently trivial? Anyway, maybe better not to pin it down.
Cheers,
Luke

On 12 May 2018 at 22:47, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Well IME, as someone recovering from a "schizophrenia" diagnosis, it can be.

Luke

On 12 May 2018 at 21:35, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
All written language is a foreign language.


-----Original Message-----
From: Luke
Sent: May 12, 2018 4:11 PM
To: [log in to unmask]C.UK
Subject: Re: on verbs in poetry

> The language of authenticity is  a learned behavior.

And Ashbery's "language"?

Luke

On 12 May 2018 at 20:10, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
The language of authenticity is  a learned behavior.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Bircumshaw
Sent: May 12, 2018 2:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]C.UK
Subject: Re: on verbs in poetry

Yes.Tristan. But for instance Peter Porter wrote poems about losing his wife. Surely those were equally authentic.



On 12 May 2018 at 18:56, Tristan Moss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
She lost an adult son. Read the poem by Riley Luke. Here’s a link to it. https://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n03/denise-riley/a-part-song

She just has a great way with words and the ability to choose just the right one. Of course, this adds to the authenticity of the voice. 



On 12 May 2018, at 18:31, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Not suggesting that you haven't! Just suggesting that one can't decide from your description, anymore than you can from knowing the Riley's (or at least, the author) lost a baby.

Luke

On 12 May 2018 at 18:29, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Surely it's impossible to say without reading it

> Tom Paulin, an otherwise fan, regarded it as 'adolescent'.

Luke

On 12 May 2018 at 09:02, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
This interesting Tim, and knotty, but it has the feel of real discussion. One might almost say authentic :)

DH Lawrence could well be called authentic. Yet he was also rhetorical and pretentious, all those dark gods that had no place wandering the streets of an imagination made a bus ride from Nottingham.

Is Peter Reading's 'C' authentic? A hundred pieces of prose behaving like poems each a hundred words long written in a style au naturel but as artificial and calculated as a wedding song by Spenser. A fake fiction about cancer by a man who once had it and another time would die from it. Tom Paulin, an otherwise fan, regarded it as 'adolescent'.

Are the best-selling Birthday Letters authentic?? Is Maya Angelou ditto?

Best

Dave









On 11 May 2018 at 11:44, Tim Allen <0000002899e7d020-dmarc-reques[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Yes exactly Luke, the 'how' is still missing, at least in the sense of describing a 'how' that was special to Riley. I used the word 'authentic' because of its innate problems - it is one of the most difficult terms to use when applied to the arts, but nevertheless I think my use of it in the context of Riley is 'authentic'.

Perceptions of and identifying authenticity in music is an even more contentious - the process that leads from authentic feeling and expression first to model/form then to simulacrum and finally to soulless golem (e.g. x factor or whatever) is almost impossible to untangle. 

Cheers

Tim

On 11 May 2018, at 02:03, Luke wrote:

I'm still missing a how. No-one is innately authentic, so how does one go about it? Incidentally. I was recently listening to Kurt Cobain, of Nirvana, ha, and it struck me so, also. So not limited to poetry, anyway!