The news that an anthology for students in Britain that contains a "violent" poem by major British poet Carol Ann Duffy is to be destroyed, is alarming. Eyewear has long bemoaned the "nicing-up" of poetry in the UK, where some in government want "innovation" without pain. Poetry, friends, is not all fun and games - sometimes someone writing or reading does lose (or gain) an eye. Poetry, since at least Poe, has been disturbing - and even in The Bible, horrifying subjects are treated. In fact, if all books with violent themes or issues were to be culled from UK schools, none would be left, or few worth reading. This reactionary attack is meant to appear tough on the causes of crime, but is really just a dumb stab in the dark at that easiest target to wound: poetry (and by extension, culture). Poets, and those who love poetry, should defend this anthology, and this poem - and stop its destruction at the hands of Gradgrinds.
When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se. What do I mean by smart?
Comments
i thought you meant that some kind of book pulping was going to happen, which would be truly scary, but the report says the anthology is getting *withdrawn*, which downgrades the alert from red to something less totalitarian.
But the general principle about PC correctness being a vehicle for less savoury mean spirited beardy neo-cons disguised as liberals, i too experienced only yesterday on the guardian books blog.
i went there about 18 months back, to respond to shirley dent, about her whinge over an event i was performing Live poetry at, and thinking she might be some big mean spirited liberal teflon head who is super posh, due to being a novice in the publishing game.
After getting there i had about 8 months great time spamming all day, and not as some weirdo dolite trying to pick up a soulmate by pretending to have an interest in poetry, but as a student of the noble art, with six years study behind me.
i went there in the first place because i had been slung out of two chat gaffes over the course of the previous 18 months or so, which i began talking at length on soon after finishing college and coming to dublin to cintinue my training and study.
the reasons given were just like this thing here, in the sense that some spurious mean spirited non creative reason which i think was down to whoever it was behind my expulsion, just didn't like my way with words, not because i was not poetical or creative myself, but sheer simple human jealousy dressed up in the typical british way of trying to make someone who is just an innocent enjoying their profitable study, feel as though they were an amateur and troublemaker not deserving of even acknowledgment that what they spend their life doing, is genuine.
That only one version of Poetry is tolerated, which is not a problem, what was was the underhanded and shabby way in which i was treated, just a sling out on the ear and then smearing of me, as a mentally ill weirdo, when it eventually transpired after two years and 18 months respectively of being slung out of these joints by ppl with a lot more time and higher up the food chain in English (not really british) poetry; that in fact, at least one of them had suffered mental illness, for which i had to suffer.
My learning curve has been unique, in the sense that i started in 2001 and developed a very specific critical approach, based on three yrs at university studying writing before i even publically touted myself about has having aspirations to poetry, and as it seems the new young lot now are, i was proved right in deciding to bide my time and just use the net to learn, after all it is a brand new medium and it is in the next few yrs the real picture will emerge.
So i am happy on the GU BB and then one of the poets who tossed me out of their gaffe, comes to it and starts on me straight away and got their eye wiped eventually, and proved wrong, that s/he was the one who had done me an injustice, not the other way round.
But part of the fallout of this, was the BB barred me as threats of libel anbd slander started getting slung about and they made a blanket decision, i was no longer to be tolerated there.
Which was fair enough, and it took me a few months to get over it, and a lot of ranting, rejoining and feeling poor me, but then a few days back i rejoined after a month away and all the hard work of the last seven yrs of non stop writing had paid off as i found i had managed to completely detach and in no way be offensive and in fact, the opposite, how to speak purley civilly, happy and not only that but the username Dannan, caused an outbreak of good will between previous warring posters.
Anyway, what they did, when they sussed it was me, was remove the poster rights from this username (it only takes a minute to get another one and back on) but have not removed my material, and i see now i have cracked it, as whereas before i was taking things personal, now whoever is keeping me out at the GU, it is purely petty. Go and see for yourself, the posts are genuinely written by someone who is talking in a deep way about poetry, and they aren't taking them off, because they know ppl will suss on they are just acting out of a mean spirited, way and i am being unfairly treated, because they don't like me, i can only assume, due to some petty jealousy based on summat a lot deeper which ties in with the force you're on about. That way the people will exclude you based on bullshit.
don't get me wrong, i am very happy about it as it proves i have arrived in that ollamh space and the last seven yrs paid off.
i only work online for, write for me, to learn and to be penalised for showing innovative ways of working, being good at what i do, well, i am going to have a right laugh for the rest of my life, as my talent aint going away and now i have learned how to speak devoid of any and all petty ego bollix, the trolls who hide behind the plastic facade of being in it for Art and poetry, will get all wound up.
Surely the only way to learn is to do it, but i detect in English poetry, that they old guard do not like the new way that any one can have their say, and this is shown in the way a lot of one line conversations occur, as the ppl who learnt only in the rags, pontificating to a void that doesn't answer back, find it appalling people who do not fit their idea of what a poet is, can openly debate with them and show up any weak areas of the argument if they cannot defend them.
and so what they do, is not engage, boot you out and say you are an appalling person, for what writing? literacy and the freedom to express oneself, we here all these people with power in publishing advocating the freedom of speech, but the truth as i found out, is different if you can stand up for yrself, and rebut their position. then they explode in silence and get on a war footing. Poetry, its great innit?
Happy days.