tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8932881188742828155.post4011549688211118102..comments2023-07-28T08:59:55.424+01:00Comments on Fuselit: Cut Out and Keep: Too Much PoetryKirsten Irvinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17896354048122979962noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8932881188742828155.post-52317939399968717322010-08-11T08:07:40.870+01:002010-08-11T08:07:40.870+01:00This is very, very true. Most collections I read n...This is very, very true. Most collections I read now are at least competent and many are better. Ironically I think it resulted in large measure from the kind of writing workshops that poets ran (and that reviewers invariably disparage from a standpoint of lofty ignorance). There really is a lot of good, readable stuff out there.<br /><br />I would say this was not completely new, rather a throwback to the time a couple of centuries back when any reasonably educated gent or lady was expected to be able to turn out a bit of light occasional verse to a fair, and sometimes high, standard. Now, thanks to universal education, it doesn't only have to be gents and ladies. But the likes of Robertson are clearly uneasy that so many folk have got into their enclosure. Well, as the KIribati gent said when the missionary told him off for building a pagan shrine to Jesus, God is not like the mission-house; there is no fence around him to keep out the unworthy. No fence round poetry or talent either.Sheenagh Pughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02735299981866333316noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8932881188742828155.post-12244510135904958272010-08-10T09:33:01.797+01:002010-08-10T09:33:01.797+01:00I read this nodding all the way through. Not noddi...I read this nodding all the way through. Not nodding as in falling asleep. Nodding as in yes, yes, yes.<br /><br />It's true. Of course there's loads of bad writing. But there's loads of good. I read poetry all the time and I can't keep up -- but there's something exhilarating about that, even if it's daunting.<br /><br />The prizes <i>do</i> award good work. But lots of really good work doesn't get prizes. You can't see the wind for the breeze.<br /><br />Another factor (it seems to me) is the way people are pushing the boundaries of text, sometimes using the Po word and sometimes not. And they're trying to do very different things often, so it's hard to compare. I'm constantly reading things I don't know how to approach. That means it takes ages, and it means new ways of paying attention. <br /><br />I'd be surprised if there are not over a hundred books, at least, of good quality poetry published each year. And if there aren't, there could be.<br /><br />But if you want to market a book, you need it to stand out from the crowd. It's tough going marketing a crowd, and not very attractive for new poets either. Come along and join the crowd, bruv an sis.<br /><br />If the word 'poetry' means anything at all, it means 'special'. Join the special crowd. Come and be special like us, all five thousand of us. Oh hell . . . .Helen Beatonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09542461737038771438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8932881188742828155.post-73775145085008401252010-08-10T01:18:59.055+01:002010-08-10T01:18:59.055+01:00Robertson is blurbed (on the poetryarchive.com) as...Robertson is blurbed (on the poetryarchive.com) as a 'poet of austere and meticulous diction, tempered by a sensuous music', who speaks of the pool of poetry being 'polluted' by pple who write poems in, he clearly assumes, inferior to his own, 'austere and meticulous diction.'<br /><br />The problem with these old timers is, they came up thro the Soho Bovver schools, where everything was sticked up in the Pillars of Hercules. Robertson himself en editor and London personality enmeshed in the tut-tut male, middle-aged poet fear and loathing of anyone rubbishing their poetry as they rubbish the 'lesser', untalented pple polluting the exclusive pool his imagination has deemed to be what poetry is all about.<br /><br />There's lots of them, and it all stems, I think, to the fact that few (if any) of these blokey poets whose glory days of twenty to forty are gone, and their poems of alpha male arties struggling thro the hell of contemporary publishing, sell in any great number, or are gonna be remembered.<br /><br />You can listen to the austere diction of Robertson speaking his verse at the poetry archive, and hearing his voice, the priestly hierophantic tenor is obvious. The guy thinks he is saying something incredibly deep and serious, when, to my ear, it's just bland identikit, sub-martianesque stuff polluting the pool.<br /><br />Without their jobs in publishing, no one to keep out, their power gone, would they go sell their poems on the streets? I doubt it.CoirĂ FilĂochtahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com