[New-Poetry] Carol Ann Duffy gets the laurels

[Judy Prince]

You betcha, Bobbo!  Damn straight!  Full steam ahead [the little engine that
could (read Latin)]!  And all that rot and rubbish!  I don't care if it's
published and sanctioned and sanctified!  I write what I write because I
write, damn it!
Don't you, too?

Best,

Judy

2009/5/2 Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> Judy Prince wrote:
>
>> oh dear, and welcome back, Uche.  I'm a relative newcomer to NP, but
>> recall Robin having talked so well of you, of your being on NP some time
>> ago.
>>
>> I've been wanting to like Carol Duffy's poems, really really wanting to
>> like them.  But I do not.  Without using poetry jargon, I'll say that her
>> work's pedestrian and 'reaches' hard to do poetic things.  I do not feel
>> that she's mediocre *because* she is popular or *because* she writes simply;
>> these are not qualities that militate against excellent poetry.
>> She gives no fresh-beauty collidings of words and images, and a reader
>> feels as if it's necessary to help her along somehow whilst reading her
>> poems.  The Latin chanting of a train perhaps theoretically could work, but
>> it actually fails frightfully.  None of its called-up images works happily
>> with the others.  Here is a train chanting, and one thinks of nuns with
>> rosary beads saying "Hail Marys" whilst rounding the tracks towards Houston
>> Station.  The little engine that could [pray in Latin].  Just not an image
>> that evokes much besides an imminent train crash or ruler-slaps and
>> paddlings, or for us in the USA, Sally Field in *The Flying Nun* nuisancely
>> flying round the tracks.
>> If Duffy has had editors, and surely she has, then WHAT WERE THEY
>> THINKING, besides ignoring their job as editors?  Did they say to
>> themselves:  "Aha!  Just what the young folk want--simple stuff that passes
>> as poetry!  YES!  Work up a study guide or two, a few lovely syllabi to tuck
>> into those deliciously heavy backpacks!"  And some of the editors had to be
>> saying: "Do not touch her 'common touch'---it's pure, it's her, it's them,
>> it's The New Something!"
>>
>> Again, I will say what I always say:  writing good poetry's damned
>> difficult.
>> I have done a good poem or two and can't figure out how I did them.  All
>> the rest of mine are crap, tho hardwon crap.  And I don't get better at it.
>>  I just get more aware of how awful it is.
>> But folks---I'm not applying to be a Poet Laureate of anybody's country!
>>  However, now I think I might just go ahead and apply.  P'raps in 10 years,
>> with a nice polished new double citizenship [USA and UK], I'll be recognised
>> as writing the New Something poetry and be in line to demand 600 butts of
>> sack.
>>
> Yeeks, Judy, you think being recognized as "writing the New Something
> poetry" will get you anywhere with bigTime awards-bestowers?!
> --Bob
>
>
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