I took issue with pretty much everything in this post. Especially your third point. That sort of thing is very typical of your way of thinking. It goes without saying that your claim is not rooted in reality. How many times have you actually seen or heard about this?
You would say that, your IP address is [insert IP address] and you work for [insert name of evil multinational company]. You anon detractors are all the same, you all [generalize and exaggerate comments borrowed from post anon made]. What's more, you assume I'm trying to be right when it's obvious I'm trying to make poetry here. There are other websites (http://www.noddy.com/) out there that might better suit your worldview.
Hello Nick. This is not a comment on your latest blog (although it was very interesting, as always), but an attempt to get in touch, having misplaced your email address.
You may remember me, or not. I'm the arts editor of the Scotsman newspaper. Years ago I approached you about writing a column for our Saturday magazine, an idea which fell through because our then editor was a philistine. I am still annoyed about this, and thorougly embarrassed for having wasted your time. The editor we have now is not a philistine but I no longer have the budget to hire columnists (these are dark times for the newspaper industry) so that ship has sailed, sadly.
However I remain a regular Click Opera reader, and I am intrigued by your Book of Scotlands project. I'd very much like to talk to you about featuring it in some way in our Saturday magazine when the book comes out - an interview, plus an extract or something else written by you if you're willing. If you're interested in talking further this, drop me a line some time at aeaton@scotsman.com.
Best wishes, Andrew Eaton
PS: I would have approached you face to face about this when you were last in Scotland doing your Glasgow show, but it was right on the eve of the Edinburgh Festival and I was in our Edinburgh office all weekend preparing so couldn't go. Very sad I had to miss it. Hope you can play here again soon.
Something that I find interesting is the fusion of a library-video store-bakery. It is exactly what Marshall Mcluhan, E F Schumacher and Tim Flannery have (more or less) noted in their most well known books. That is, being specialised in the modern world today won't work well.
Also, being specialised is somewhat urban, while the opposite (is there a name for the opposite) is more rustic.
Momus is indisposed; he asked me to answer this one for you.
Momus doesn't really read poetry, although he did when he was younger. He particularly doesn't like that parochial Larkin type stuff or that histrionic Plath type stuff. As a young man he read Rilke, Rimbaud and the Symbolists. He likes Shakespeare. He can't think of too many contemporary poets he admires, maybe someone like Snider.
I've actually been in bed with one of my glaucoma headaches.
Poets who've meant a lot to me: Brecht, Robert Lowell, Rilke, W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, Peter Porter, Michael Hoffmann, Michael Donaghy, Osip Mandelstam, Paul Celan, Ian Hamilton Finlay. More recently I've discovered Finlay's son, Alec Finlay. And I like Tao Lin's poems!
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 12:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 12:52 pm (UTC)Hello from Scotsman journalist
Date: 2008-10-03 12:56 pm (UTC)You may remember me, or not. I'm the arts editor of the Scotsman newspaper. Years ago I approached you about writing a column for our Saturday magazine, an idea which fell through because our then editor was a philistine. I am still annoyed about this, and thorougly embarrassed for having wasted your time. The editor we have now is not a philistine but I no longer have the budget to hire columnists (these are dark times for the newspaper industry) so that ship has sailed, sadly.
However I remain a regular Click Opera reader, and I am intrigued by your Book of Scotlands project. I'd very much like to talk to you about featuring it in some way in our Saturday magazine when the book comes out - an interview, plus an extract or something else written by you if you're willing. If you're interested in talking further this, drop me a line some time at aeaton@scotsman.com.
Best wishes,
Andrew Eaton
PS: I would have approached you face to face about this when you were last in Scotland doing your Glasgow show, but it was right on the eve of the Edinburgh Festival and I was in our Edinburgh office all weekend preparing so couldn't go. Very sad I had to miss it. Hope you can play here again soon.
Re: Hello from Scotsman journalist
Date: 2008-10-03 01:28 pm (UTC)Re: Hello from Scotsman journalist
Date: 2008-10-03 01:38 pm (UTC)Re: Hello from Scotsman journalist
Date: 2008-10-03 01:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 02:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 02:39 pm (UTC)Also, being specialised is somewhat urban, while the opposite (is there a name for the opposite) is more rustic.
Poetry
Date: 2008-10-03 02:50 pm (UTC)Imo.
Re: Poetry
Date: 2008-10-03 04:00 pm (UTC)Momus doesn't really read poetry, although he did when he was younger. He particularly doesn't like that parochial Larkin type stuff or that histrionic Plath type stuff. As a young man he read Rilke, Rimbaud and the Symbolists. He likes Shakespeare. He can't think of too many contemporary poets he admires, maybe someone like Snider.
Re: Poetry
Date: 2008-10-03 05:52 pm (UTC)Re: Poetry
Date: 2008-10-03 06:12 pm (UTC)Poets who've meant a lot to me: Brecht, Robert Lowell, Rilke, W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, Peter Porter, Michael Hoffmann, Michael Donaghy, Osip Mandelstam, Paul Celan, Ian Hamilton Finlay. More recently I've discovered Finlay's son, Alec Finlay. And I like Tao Lin's poems!
Re: Poetry
Date: 2008-10-04 05:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 07:58 pm (UTC)Yes.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 08:10 pm (UTC)Utopia
Island where all becomes clear.
Solid ground beneath your feet.
The only roads are those that offer access.
Bushes bend beneath the weight of proofs.
The Tree of Valid Supposition grows here
with branches disentangled since time immemorial.
The Tree of Understanding, dazzling staight and simple.
sprouts by the spring called Now I Get It.
The thicker the woods, the vaster the vista:
the Valley of Obviously.
If any doubts arise, the wind dispels them instantly.
Echoes stir unsummoned
and eagerly explain all the secrets of the worlds.
On the right a cave where Meaning lies.
On the left the Lake of Deep Conviction.
Truth breaks from the bottom and bobs to the surface.
Unshakable Confidence towers over the valley.
Its peak offers an excellent view of the Essence of Things.
For all its charms, the island is uninhabited,
and the faint footprints scattered on its beaches
turn without exception to the sea.
As if all you can do here is leave
and plunge, never to return, into the depths.
Into unfathomable life.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 08:21 pm (UTC)