[New-Poetry] Carol Ann Duffy gets the laurels

[David Bircumshaw]

Well, Bob, on the first matter I'd nod the head towards the ghost of 
I.A.Richards and 'Practical Criticism' and 'stock association ...

... while on the second, yes, it's true, there's always at least two or 
three in the chorus whose voices are just as good as the leads, if not 
better.

best


David Bircumshaw
Website: http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views" 
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 03, 2009 12:37 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Carol Ann Duffy gets the laurels


> david.bircumshaw at ntlworld.com wrote:
>> I agree with you that the poem is emotional, Anny, but I fear it's 
>> something of an emotional trap.
>>
>> Non-British readers probably wouldn't realise this about the Shipping 
>> Forecast which the last lines quote but in the 1950s and early 60s the 
>> BBC channel on which it is broadcast , nowadays BBC Radio 4, was then 
>> called 'the Home Service'. It was one of only three channels. People of 
>> Duffy's (or my) generation were among the last to grow up with radio as 
>> the main live intrusion of the big world outside and the litanical like 
>> recital of Shipping areas early in the morning bundles a whole set of 
>> fixed stereotyped responses. Prayer comes harder than that (other than 
>> the Lord's Prayer, which is a special case)
>>
>> best
>>
>> dave
> I'm a little unclear here, Dave.  Sounds to me like Duffy is doing what I 
> think poets should do (at least some of the time) and I almost always try 
> to do--pick accessible, emotionally-resonant images and make a poem out of 
> them.  For instance, I've more than once centered my boyhood treehut in 
> poems.  Very standard--but it seems to me it's not the iimages that count 
> but how you use them. My problem with Duffy's poem is not that it isn't a 
> good poem, but that I feel there are hundreds of poets around making poems 
> as good as it, only a few of whom are getting the publicity and money for 
> it that she is, and dozens making better ones, none of whom is getting any 
> publicity and money for it.
> --Bob
>
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