thepoem

[Jeffrey Side]

Critical comment on Astley's recent New Statesman article "Give Poetry Back to People" at http://jeffreyside.tripod.com/

[rcl]

Well, here's the direct link for those who prefer not to read a paraphrase with a few insults thrown in.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200610230043

I'm a Bloodaxe poet, Jeffrey. Would you care to say how my poetry is populist, descriptive and prose-like?

And how about the work of, say, Kamau Braithwaite, Inger Christensen, Jen Hadfield, Peter Reading, Roy Fisher, Tomas Transtromer, WN Herbert, Peter Didsbury, John Kinsella, Kapka Kassabova, JH Prynne, Selima Hill, James Berry, Tua Forsstrom, Gjertrud Schnackenberg, George Szirtes?

Two problems with your argument (though I'm not sure what your argument is other than taking a cheap potshot at poetry which you dismiss as simplistic):

First, if you look at The Archive of the Now, posted the other day, you'll find that LIP poets are no more or less likely to use 'description' than any other sort of poet. Nor is their work any less likely to be 'prose-like', in a positive or negative sense.

Secondly, if you are making claims for Bloodaxe foregoing 'art' in the face of marketing, then you ought to have a look at Chris Emery's very interesting book on marketing poetry which makes Neil's sales pitches look like small beer - and why not? Publishers are businesses.

[abena]

Jeffrey has simply quoted a lot of the Astley piece and then made a simplistic assertion of his own which is a diluted attempt to adapt Forrest-Thomson's idea of "bad naturalization" - ie empirical poetry which suspends the awareness of artifice. By calling it "description" you find that description itself is as Roddy points out, all over the place, and a complicated idea. Then Jeffrey calls it a "criticism"?

A pity, as the Astley position here and in his lecture is pretty incoherent and if someone could be bothered to go through it point by point, it disappears. What does he want changed? Other publishers and reviewers focus too narrowly. Presumably the market will rule them out if they are, as it is the market he means by "people".

[Crazy Jane]

My favourite bit: clicking 'Listen' to hear his name pronounced Neil Arsely.



Neil's absolutely right, of course. I've just been embroiled in an argument myself over on the BritPo list where I foolishly suggested that commerce and poetry must be linked, and had my head bitten off because a commercial attitude to poetry apparently stifles art and creative freedom, not to mention being a bit grubby and distasteful.
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[Anonymous]

Kavanagh reckoned you couldn't beat having a row in print and I have often wondered if Neil Astley and Mick Schmidt are really busom boyfriends who know the value of scrap publicity.

How do they really get on? Not at all or laughing at the spats?Do they have to be kept seperated for fear of spilling blood or are they really pals?

[edmundhardy]

that automated reading is brilliantly entertaining. it's more like a Latin name - "ars-ley" - but best of all is the sudden drop in tone for the word "paradoxically".

[ally may]

I was not surprised to learn that more people write poetry than go to football matches it certainly isn't a good time to be a Newcastle fan at present.

[bluescreen]

Scalljah:

[rcl]

I believe Michael and Neil get on fairly well and have known each other for a long time. They have both shifted their tack a bit in recent years - Neil maintains that interesting readers (new or disinterested readers) in poetry which might be a stepping stone (to single volumes, to poetry which is 'other' in many senses) is a good thing, hence the three big anthologies and the series of readers by poets with a popular appeal, which started with Mary Oliver and Alden Nowlan.

Schmidt on the other had always like a bit of belly-rumbling, but took it all with a pinch of salt. I'm told that in the past few years, the pinch of salt is running out and he is becoming increasingly bellicose - with fire-breathing editorials in PNR. Don't shoot the messenger - that's just what I've heard from those who know him.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Blue and Roddy for that. It makes sense they would get on, or at least have respect for each other. It's easy for us lot to sit in our bedsits taking potshots, but people like Neil, Mick and our Chris here are the ones who put their money where their mouths are and actually get something up and running.

I met Neil in Conways pub 2 years ago when I first pitched up here and had a brief chat. My sister got me Staying Alive for christmas and I found the section on metrical terms at the back of it very helpful, which I told him. I saw Schmidt with Chris Ricks at the Greg Delanty Collected launch with Shay Fay in attendance and seeing the big boys in the flesh in one room shmoozing with the great unwashed helped put a human face on poetry and brought it a lot closer to me than would have been the case if I only read their set piece battles about who the true flame bearers are.

It's also understandable that Mick may be getting more entrenched as he slips closer to the long goodbye, as he is one of the most knowledgable minds in poetry with a strong claim to being head bore, and when you have been a catalyst for what's happening as long as he has I suppose it is only natural that he would have the confidence of Colin Farrell at a sixth form convent school dance.

I have an unsent e mail to him from the time Carcanet were advertising for an intern and it opens

"Dear Mr Schmidt, I have been looking for the excuse to write to you for a long time.."

and then goes on about me me me. Maybe one day I will send it to him with my first collection manuscript - Poetry Assassin.