Tuesday 11 March 2008

More Canonicity

And also, as a bonus, an article from Jacket magazine about women and experimental poetry which I found interesting this morning:

Prynneglettes (sorry for the facetious link title...)

As an addendum to that, I noticed this rather snidey sweeping statement (third paragraph down) about the 'Cambridge School' that Craig Raine made in his introduction to the Guardian's Eliot giveaway this morning. Firstly, I don't think that 'postmodern' is an adequate term for dealing with poetry by Prynne, or Denise Riley, or Ian Patterson, or whoever else (on second thoughts, maybe it does for Tom Raworth) Raine is trying to tar with the brush of faddishness here. Secondly, does 'Not difficult to difficult, actually' mean what I think it does? Was 'A Martian Sends a Postcard Home' really more difficult to write than 'High Pink on Chrome'? Of course, I might have got this completely wrong and Raine might be being generous and implying that Prynne et al aren't 'just' being wantonly or gratuitously difficult. You decide.

Right, I'm off to play football in the unpredictable weather.

Jx

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