This link is to a blog entry from 2008 on David Morley's Warwick University blog - to which I may have linked before but no matter; this entry would repay a second or third visit - where David is describing the events at the Great Troubador Poetry Debate.
The key thing, however, is the less formal debate that follows in the Comments section, which makes for informative and often curious reading, and follows the train of thought expressed below:
David Morley wrote:
Outside is now becoming the new inside. One example: the gently whale-like appetite of Salt Publications – whose work and enterprise I think is totally welcome and good fun – has torn the nets between what we used to call the avant-grade, what we used to call the middle of the road, and what we used to call the mainstream. I think this blending of species is probably a good thing. Now we are different types of krill mixing about in the same space. Now we are all inside the whale, as Orwell would have it. Now we are all calling from the inside hoping to be heard on the outside. A new slightly enlarged small world, a convergence of alternative universes, but at least we have all become more visible and audible to each other.
Then read the Comments which follow. I have ideas of my own about this 'blending' of two different types of poetry - more on that anon.
1 comment:
Dear Jane
Many thanks for drawing my attention to this interesting debate. I don't often see myself as a trendsetter but when I published my long poem 'Seasonal Affective Disorder' in 1997, long poems were rarer than hens' teeth. One thing I think we can all agree on is that British poetry is in a far healthier state now than it was even a decade ago and this is mainly thanks to the internet.
I also probably agree with you that all artists are charlatans. The trouble is that not all charlatans are artists!
Best wishes from Simon
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