Dear David,
Thanks for supplying this.
It looks to me as if there are two issues here:
- Bill was clearly angry about Andrew Duncan's dismissive account of Bob Cobbing (and Writers Forum generally) in his review of Verbi Visi Voco in AE 9 and AE 10. AE10 included a letter from Adrian Clarke (one of the AE editors - who moves from 'Editor on furlough' in AE9 to Editor Emeritus in AE10 - and has disappeared from the editorial board by AE11) which praises AE9 but challenges Andrew's reading of Cobbing and Writers Forum. Bill was also unhappy with Andrew's obituary assessment of Eric Mottram's career in AE12 - probably the assessment of Eric's poetry in particular. Andrew's opinions are vigorously expressed, and there is a fraught atmosphere . You then get caught up in this cross-fire.
- Your poem 'Endlines (after Bill Griffiths)' seems to have drawn you into the conflict. I haven't compared your poem with Bill's original, but it is clear that, in the AE context, he saw this poem not as homage but as critique - or, to use his term, 'provocation'.
Yes, it is delicious that Bill was 'a gentle and unassuming biker' - just as delicious as that he should be a biker and a very scrupulous Anglo-Saxon Scholar (as his PhD on Alfred's Anglo-Saxon translation of De Consolatione Philosophiae shows) - or a biker and a fine classical pianist. Classical piano playing is a bit harder to tie into gang culture. I knew Bill for over thirty years and my experience of him was of 'a gentle and unassuming man'. This description of him is based on my encounters with him not on some stereotype of bikers.
I have seen there is a further email from you. I might not get to it today.
Yours,
Robert
From: British & Irish poets <[log in to unmask]AC.UK> on behalf of David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 10 August 2018 20:44:46It's not possible for me to reproduce all the exchanges here, you have to delve through the 1997 archives and the messages don't hang on just one thread. But I did say that I had realised that bikers, prison, Anglo-Saxon and the poetry scene have a commonality - they do - it's that gang culture features in all. Here is Bill Griffiths, from this list, displaying exactly the mindset of literary gang warfare: he turns me into a member of London's avant-garde turf wars and close associate of someone at that point I had never met.
I never met Griffiths: I did meet many bikers in my youth and the idea of a gentle and unassuming biker is delicious. I do like his attacking me for using long words, the voice of the pseudo populist itself.
Dear List, Apologies for putting David Bircumshaw in such a flurry. I assumed that after his work on my behalf in 'Angel Exhaust' 12 - after the editorship had mysteriously passed to Andrew Duncan - that he would scarcely be surprised at my responding. His provocation was after all not unakin to shoving me in the ear with an umbrella with a horse's head handle. Now here the average list member can check the internet site for 'Angel Exhaust' if they like and see if I am being oversensitive about his contribution or not. That very same issue embellished by David Bircumshaw contained an unsatisfactory assessment of Eric Mottram, while earlier issues contained abusive assessments of Bob Cobbing and his work, with the occasional germinal poke at my good self. This is the context in which David Bircumshaw chose to place his curious re-writing of one my shortest poems. So short, that it hardly needed a Bircumshaw at all to point out its short-comings. Nonetheless he valiantly strives to make as much muck and pig out of nine lines as he can. I would say this was very much placing himself at the forefront of the campaign against a few targeted poets, which flowered so spectacularly in Andrew Duncan's article for 'First Offence'. Why do I object to David Bircumshaw claiming an anti-right stance for his critical mirage? Because the main figures attacked by his associate Andrew Duncan are Eric Mottram and Bob Cobbing. That this is some harmless expression of mutual rivalry between Cambridge and London I beg to disbelieve; it seems to me more significant that these two have been key figures in a socialist-democratic expansion of modern culture - not by any overtly political action, but by a generous disposition to encourage innovation and experiment, as against the rather elite, exclusive, and negative image of European High Culture Andrew Duncan seems to me to propagate. What else is there to link David Bircumshaw and Andrew Duncan? A very considerable similarity of tone and attitude I should say. They share the same dependence on Freudian assumptions (David Bircumshaw, mailing of 8 Nov 1998 re puns and Andrew Duncan on poetry as confession in essay on Bob Cobbing in 'Angel Exhaust' 9-10). The same defensive ploy of resorting to rare words and unexplained elite concepts (David Bircumshaw's recent mailings and Andrew Duncan passim). They also share a sort of self-mystification process, as though they chose to locate in some startling scifi situation of Jack Vance. I am not saying that David Bircumshaw and Andrew Duncan share one brain. I have no evidence on this subject at all. But it does seem to me odd, that David Bircumshaw should somehow naturally see abstract words as alternatives to insults. Again, this rings remarkably like the tendency to personal abuse that Andrew Duncan has come to favour recently. He can hardly have misunderstood my preference for facts over abstractions when it comes to serious assessment of any subject. But perhaps in all this he coincides with Andrew Duncan purely by coincidence, and it is evidence of no cultural connection or sympathy at all. How can we test it? By deeds, surely, rather than words. Will David Bircumshaw withdraw his mangling of my poem from publication and from the internet and apologise? I do not expect any amazing revelation or denunciation. I merely ask him to be a little less evasive about his position, and little more considerate before he single anyone out again for would-be worldwide dishonour. This is surely the way - rather than treating us to lots of long words - to establish his name for fairness and objectivity. bill [log in to unmask]
On 10 August 2018 at 19:57, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I sound like a dick, sorry. Just pseudo sticking up for David, and annoyed that no-one else uses this list except to mourn dead friends... People are mostly just people, would be nicer to have a discussion of the poetry.
Luke
On 10 August 2018 at 19:48, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> My impression was, precisely, of a 'gentle and unassuming man'. And, yes, he lived on the breadline
Maybe I'm missing something. I'll buy some books.
On 10 August 2018 at 19:40, Hampson, R <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Thank you for this. I knew Bill from the 1970s onwards - and this fits with my sense of him. I heard him talking about Old English poetry; I heard him reading on numerous occasions; and I met up with him at Westfield when he was archiving Eric Mottram's papers. My impression was, precisely, of a 'gentle and unassuming man'. And, yes, he lived on the breadline - and died far too soon.
Robert
From: British & Irish poets <[log in to unmask]AC.UK> on behalf of Paul Holman <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 09 August 2018 21:21:12
To: [log in to unmask]C.UK
Subject: Re: Bill Griffiths: August 20David, would you care to explain, carefully & slowly, what you mean by that remark. I knew Bill Griffiths well back in the day, & he was a gentle & unassuming man, located so far from any kind of literary privilege that the bulk of his writing was issued as very obviously home made spiral bound pamphlets. He lived on the breadline, & spent time among bikers, in prison, & on a houseboat before settling deeply into life at Seaham, all a very long way from centres of cultural power & influence. He died in middle age, with a tiny readership & plenty of work left to do, & I see absolutely no reason to carp that his poetry, which is absolutely breathtaking at its best, is receiving a degree of attention & celebration now.
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