[New-Poetry] Heidegger and poetry

[David Bircumshaw]

> And, David, how can poetry be consumerist when almost everyone agrees 
> it's hard to it give away? Even poets like this unlikely triumverate 
> could only be said to 'sell well' by 'poetry standards'.
I was thinking in terms of a poetry which has certain features that are 
materialist qua metaphysics but not a materialism that is consciously 
philosophic but rather shaped by, limited by being the product of a 
consumerist society. That doesn't mean it'll sell well on the wider 
market. But a self-satisfied poetry, that does not admit its own 
precariousness (unlike, say, Celan's, which really doesn't confront 
metaphysics, or rather the absence of metaphysics).
This is very generalised, James, but I'd have to write an essay-length 
post to effectively argue the point. You know, it is a tour that would 
have to begin in William Carlos Williams' icebox, stand on the sidewalk 
with Frank O'Hara the day Marilyn died, grumble in its small beer with 
Philip Larkin's pension, and shadow-box post-modernly with John Ashbery 
while discretely collecting in the Palace of Art.
I could go on. On a slant to this, one of the most disappointing things 
I notice, when talking to younger poets or would-be poets, is their 
conscious or implicit equation of poetry and 'success'. By this I do not 
mean they think of poetry as the road to mega-riches, but that they do 
conceive of 'success' at poetry as a route to a certain level of social 
standing that does imply a fairly comfortable lifestyle. The aspiration 
leaks through their writing, in its tone, ambit, ambition and register.

Best

Dave

-- 

David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html