DOCSLIB.ORG

Guise and Excess in the Poetry of Barry Macsweeney

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Guise and Excess in the Poetry of Barry Macsweeney `I am Pearl': Guise and Excessin the Poetry of Barry MacSweeney Paul Batchelor NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ---------------------------- 207 32642 2 ---------------------------- PhD in English Literature Newcastle University September 2008 Abstract Barry MacSweeney was a prolific poet who embraced many poetic styles and forms. The defining characteristics of his work are its excess (for example, its depiction of extreme emotional states,its use of challenging forms, and the flagrancy with which it appropriates other writers and poems) and its quality of swerving (for example, the way it frustrates the reader's expectations, and its oppositional identification with literary antecedents and schools). I argue that MacSweeney's poetic development constitutes a series of reactions to a moment of trauma that occurred in 1968, when a crisis in his personal life coincided with a disastrous publicity stunt for his first book. I chart MacSweeney's progress from 1968 to 1997 in terms of five stages of trauma adjustment, which account for the stylistic changes his poetry underwent. In Chapter One I consider the ways in which the traumatic episode in 1968 led to MacSweeney embracing the underground poetry scene. In Chapter Two I examine the ways in which his 1970s poetry exhibits denial. In Chapter Three I look at Jury Vet and the other angry, alienated poetry he wrote in the early 1980s. In Chapter Four I look at 1984s Ranter, an example of poetic bargaining in which MacSweeney alludes to mainstream poetry in return for what he hopes will be a wider readership. In Chapter Five I consider Hellhound Memos, the collection that resulted from a period of depression MacSweeney suffered 1985- 1993. In Chapter Six I look at his most successful work, Pearl and The Book of Demons, in which he confronts and accepts the roots of his trauma. Using a combination of close reading, literary theory and biographical research, I explicate and evaluate MacSweeney's development in terms of his literary and cultural contexts. While accounting for the various styles and approachesMacSweeney undertook, this study shows his oeuvre to be remarkably consistent in its structure, imagery and poetic techniques. ii Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements v List of Abbreviations vi Introduction Chapter One: How to Disappear Completely: 1967-71 13 On Kicking a Sacred Cow Up the Arse 13 Early Influences: The Boy From the Green Cabaret Tells of His Mother (1968) 16 Growing Up In Public: The Last Bud 28 Chapter Two: The Barry MacSweeney Hall of Fame: 1971-78 53 On Not Being Thomas Chatterton: Brother Wolf (1972) 53 On Not Being Jim Morrison: Just Twenty Two and I Don't Mind Dying (1971) 66 Chairman Bar and the Rat-bags Down at Earl's Court 74 An Unknown Legend in His Own Time: Odes (1978) 81 Chapter Three: Every Day I Write the Book: 1965 - 1983 95 Politics and Journalism 1965- 1979 95 An American Psycho in Newcastle:Jury Vet (1981) 108 All the Broken Dollpeople: `Wild Knitting' (1983) 118 Chapter Four: Desperate for Attention: 1984.86 123 Ranter's Bargain (1984) 124 Alias Smith: Fox Running and Ranter 132 The GreaterNorthumbrian Kingdom of Literary Excellence: 137 Briggf latts and Ranter The Pride of Fingal's Clan: `Finnbar's Lament' and Ireland (1986) 145 Ranter and Politics 151 iii Chapter Five: At the Crossroads: 1986-93 160 `No Mercy' (1986) 160 Hellhound Memos (1993) 164 Black Sun and the Poetry of Depression 181 Chapter Six: Victory Over the Black Sunne: 1994 - 2000 188 `I am Pearl' (1994) 188 The Questfor Redemption in Pearl 198 Bunting, Wordsworth, Perle and Pearl 205 'Forgive me for my almost unforgivable delay': The Book of Demons (1997) 211 On the Dangersof Finding One's Voice: `Daddy wants To Murder Me' 216 The Quest for Redemption in The Book of Demons 222 Conclusion 236 Bibliography 238 iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities ResearchCouncil for the funding that enabled me to undertake this thesis; Newcastle University and the family of Barry MacSweeneyfor the use of the Barry MacSweeneyPapers; my tutor ProfessorW. N. Herbert; Andrew Duncan, Terry Kelly, Peter Riley and especially Jackie Litherland for granting interviews and/or sharing their collections of MacSweeneypapers with me; and my partner Rachaelfor all her encouragementand support. V List of Abbreviations Texts by Barry MacSweeney Cabaret The Boy From The Green Cabaret Tells of His Mother (London: Hutchinson, 1968) Boulevard Our Mutual Scarlet Boulevard (London: Fulcrum Press, 1971) Just 22 `Just Twenty Two - And I Don't Mind Dying' in Wolf Tongue pp.20-23 [first publ. as Just 22 and I Don't Mind Dyin': The Official Poetical Biography of Jim Morrison, Rock Idol, Curiously Strong, 19711 Memos Hellhound Memos in Wolf Tongue, pp. 186-192 [first publ. London: The Many Press, 1993] Demons The Book of Demons in Wolf Tongue, pp. 218-284 [first publ. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1997] South East Arts Review `The British Poetry Revival, 1965-1979' in South East Arts Review (Spring 1979) pp.33-46 Archive Material Archive: BM: 1/... Material from the `published' Barry MacSweeney Papers, Robinson Library Special Collection, NewcastleUniversity. Archive: BM: 2/... Material from the `unpublished' Barry MacSweeney Papers, Robinson Library Special Collection, Newcastle University. Archive: Boxes 1-30 Correspondence,review clippings and miscellaneous material from the Barry MacSweeneypapers, Robinson Library Special Collection, NewcastleUniversity. Secondary Texts Poetry Information Mottram, Eric., `MacSweeney/Pickard/Smith:Poets from North East England interviewed by Eric Mottram', Poetry Information No. 18 (Winter/Spring 1977-78) pp.21-39. The interview was recorded 14.12.74. V1 Unpublished texts Jackie Litherland interview An interview by the author. Terry Kelly interview An interview by the author. Duncan/MacSweeney A three-day interview undertaken in 1996 by Andrew Duncan. interview Most of the tapeswere later accidentally destroyed.Only the first two tapesremain. I have used a transcript of the interview, provided by Andrew Duncan. Barry MacSweeneyreading A transcript by the author of a tape recording of a reading given by MacSweeney, which includes lengthy introductions to the Hellhound Memos. vi' Introduction Principles When Barry Patrick McSweeney published his first poems at the age of 17 in Stand, ' he did so under his birth name of `McSweeney'. Every subsequent publication appeared under the variant spelling `MacSweeney'. Mc/Mac is from the Gaelic for `son of ,2 and this initial qualification (it is not quite repudiation) of the Name of the Father was re-enacted compulsively by MacSweeney in his poetry, which is full of part-identifications, appropriated identities, surrogate selves and self-applied names and titles. For more than thirty years, the emperor, rather than his new clothes, remained invisible; and in `Sweeno, Sweeno', one of the highlights of MacSweeney's last major work The Book of Demons, the poet informs us 3 that he is `two people - at least'. Most of his readers have been happy to concur, interpreting the range and diversity of MacSweeney's oeuvre as a sign of a fundamental lack of continuity and coherence: here surely is a poet who pursues multiple lines of enquiry; a poet who writes in various modes for confused reasons; a poet who has lost his way. However, as I became more familiar with MacSweeney's work, I noticed motifs, symbols, image clusters and phrases that, although they appeared decades apart, bore a striking similarity. Might incorporate MacSweeney's restlessness - his drive to master more styles and more voices into his repertoire - have distracted readers from a consistent underlying symbolic system? I began to conceive of MacSweeney's life's work as a series of reactions to a single moment of trauma. The trauma occurred in 1968, with the convergence of several events that MacSweeney related to his concern with fatherhood: the commercial success (but artistic failure) of his first book; the ridicule he suffered following a disastrous publicity stunt; and his girlfriend having an abortion. These events led to the writing of MacSweeney's first great poem, `The Last Bud', which enacts the traumatic moment in the form of an encrypted image his literary influences, complex and by pairing up main Basil Bunting and Jeremy Prynne. This thesis offers a chronological account of how MacSweeney's career develops in the wake `Six Poemsby Barry McSweeney',Stand, Vol 8, No 2 (1966)pp. 6-9 2 'Mc' is simply a variant form of 'Mac'; however, MacSweeneymay have held the widespreadbut erroneous Irish. opinion that one is Scottish and the other 3 `Sweeno,Sweeno', p.269 1 he of the trauma, as embracesexperimental poetics, carrying forward the successfulelements and rejecting the rest. In my early chaptersI refer to Bloom's theories on poetic influence, and in my later chaptersI make use of Kristeva's theorieson the link betweendepression and the compulsion to write poems.However, I have not attempteda purely theoretical approach,for I wanted to consider the impact of the social and literary contexts in which MacSweeneyworked: Bloom denigrate and Kristeva tend to these aspectsof a writer's life. To this end, I include a brief biographical sketch with each chapter. I am aware that biographical interest and speculation has often dominated the reception of this poet. I am also aware that, despite his complaints about critics focusing on his sociological significance, MacSweeney aided this process. Nevertheless,MacSweeney's self-mythologising demandssome consideration of how he uses biographical detail in his work, and I have focussed on the ways in which he transforms details of his private life in his art. MacSweeney is a poet of excess, and his finest moments occur when his poetry is all but overwhelmed by musical effects, by emotion, by allusion or by circumstantial details. One of MacSweeney's most distinctive characteristics is the alert, speedy responsiveness of his poetry: as soon as he became aware of a new voice, style or subject, he would appropriate it.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • By Way of Old Petersburg: Desmond O'grady and Russian Poetry
    VTU Review: Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences Volume 5 Issue 1 2021 “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo By Way of Old Petersburg: Desmond O’Grady and Russian Poetry Alla Kononova University of Tyumen The article takes on a direction which has great potential for further studies of contemporary Irish poetry: studying the work of Irish poets through their relation to Russian literature. It focuses on the reception and reimagining of Russian poetry in the work of Desmond O’Grady, one of the leading figures in Irish poetry, who started writing in the mid-1950s. The article studies three poems by O’Grady which are ad- dressed to his Russian counterparts: “Missing Andrei Voznesensky,” “Joseph Brodsky Visits Kinsale,” and “My City,” a translation from Anna Akhmatova’s “Poem without a Hero.” None of these poems has yet been subject of thorough critical analysis. Each of the poems has become a signpost on O’Grady’s poetic map and an important element of his own “private mythology.” When analysed in the wider context of Irish poetry, they help form a clearer picture of the influence Russian literature has had on contemporary Irish poets. Keywords: comparative literature, Irish literature, contemporary Irish poetry, Desmond O’Grady, Irish-Russian literary connections, Andrei Voznesensky, Joseph Brodsky, Anna Akhmatova. Desmond O’Grady (1935–2014) is one of the most remarkable figures in Irish poetry of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He is sometimes described as a phenomenon “unusual among Irish poets of his generation for both his interest in modernist experimentation and his immersion in the poetry of other cultures” (Mills).
    [Show full text]
  • Download a PDF File of the Index for Volume 40
    Aindex to Volume 40 – 2018 Compiled by H.e. Knox Z INDEX Index of Authors: books reviewed are listed by author, with the title in italics and the reviewer’s name in brackets, followed by the issue number. Index of Reviewers: books reviewed are listed by reviewer, with the author’s name after the title. Subject Index: the subject is followed by the title and author of the book discussed, with the reviewer’s name in brackets. ‘Corres.’ refers to letters sent to the editor in response to the article listed, and printed in subsequent issues. Index of Original Contributions: all articles which are not strictly book reviews (features, diaries, poems, short stories) are listed here, as well as appearing in the index of authors. Index of Authors Adam, G.: Dark Side of the Boom: The Excesses of the Art Berlin, L.: Cixin Liu: Market in the 21st Century. (Abrahamian, A.A.) 40.9 Evening in Paradise: More Stories. (Lockwood, P.) 40.23 Translator Liu, K. Adams, M.: Ælfred’s Britain: War and Peace in the Viking Age. Welcome Home: A Memoir with Selected Photographs. The Dark Forest. (Richardson, N.) 40.3 (Shippey, T.) 40.9 (Lockwood, P.) 40.23 Death’s End. (Richardson, N.) 40.3 Ahmed, S.: Living a Feminist Life. (Rose, J.) 40.4 Bermant, A.: Margaret Thatcher and the Middle East. The Three-Body Problem. (Richardson, N.) 40.3 Akomfrah, J.: Mimesis: African Soldier. (Harding, J.) 40.23 (Wheatcroft, G.) 40.17 The Wandering Earth. (Richardson, N.) 40.3 Alderton, D.: Everything I Know about Love.
    [Show full text]
  • My Children, Teaching, and Nimrod the Word
    XIV Passions: My Children, Teaching, and Nimrod The word passion has most often been associated with strong sexual desire or lust. I have felt a good deal of that kind of passion in my life but I prefer not to speak of it at this moment. Instead, it is the appetite for life in a broader sense that seems to have driven most of my actions. Moreover, the former craving is focused on an individual (unless the sexual drive is indiscriminant) and depends upon that individual for a response in order to intensify or even maintain. Fixating on my first husband—sticking to him no matter what his response, not being able to say goodbye to him —almost killed me. I had to shift the focus of my sexual passion to another and another and another in order to receive the spark that would rekindle and sustain me. That could have been dangerous; I was lucky. But with the urge to create, the intense passion to “make something,” there was always another outlet, another fulfillment just within reach. My children, teaching, and Nimrod, the journal I edited for so many years, eased my hunger, provided a way to participate and delight in something always changing and growing. from The passion to give birth to and grow with my children has, I believe, been expressed in previous chapters. I loved every aspect of having children conception, to the four births, three of which I watched in a carefully placed mirror at the foot of the hospital delivery room bed: May 6, 1957, birth of Leslie Ringold; November 8, 1959, birth of John Ringold; August 2, 1961: birth of Jim Ringold; July 27, 1964: birth of Suzanne Ringold (Harman).
    [Show full text]
  • 165Richard.Pdf
    165 165 c2001 Richard Caddel Basil Basil Bunting : An Introduction to to a Northern Modernist Poet : The Interweaving Voices of Oppositional Poetry Richard Richard Caddel I'd I'd like to thank the Institute of Oriental and Occidental Studies for inviting me to give this this presentation, and for their generosity in sustaining me throughout this fellowship. I have have to say that I feel a little intimidated by my task here, which is to present the work of of a poet who is still far from well known in his own country, and who many regard as not not an easy poet (is there such a thing?) in an environment to which both he and I are foreign. foreign. This is my first visit to your country, and Bunting, though he travelled widely throughout throughout his life, never came here. That's a pity, because early in his poetic career he made what I consider to be a very effective English poem out of the Japanese prose classic, classic, Kamo no Chomei's Hojoki (albeit from an Italian tranlation, rather than the original) original) and I think he had the temperament to have enjoyed himself greatly here. I'm I'm going to present him, as much as possible, in his own words, often using recordings of him reading. He read well, and his poetry has a direct physical appeal which makes my task task of presenting it a pleasure, and I hope this approach will be useful for you as well. But first a few introductory words will be necessary.
    [Show full text]
  • Table of Contents
    Table of Contents Where in the World? Introduction to Selections and Research Focus .................. 1 The Art of Translation by Khaled Mattawa ................................ 2 UNIT ONE The Americas The Literature of the Americas by Kimberly Koza Harris ..................... 4 Literary Map of the Americas ...................................... 6 An American Classic: Aztec Creation Story ..................... 8 Oral Traditions Aztec Creation Story traditional story ................... 9 Literary Lens: Juxtaposition Focus on Research: Summarize Findings ................... 14 The Literature of Canada ...................................... 15 N Saul Bellow Herzog novel .................................... 16 Literary Lens: Interior Monologue Focus on Research: Quote Sources ...................... 19 Margaret Atwood At the Tourist Centre in Boston short story ............. 20 Literary Lens: Tone Focus on Research: Conduct a Survey .................... 23 N Alice Munro Day of the Butterfly short story ....................... 24 Literary Lens: Theme Focus on Research: Use a Variety of Sources ................ 35 The Literature of Mexico ...................................... 36 Juan Rulfo You Don't Hear Dogs Barking short story ............... 37 Literary Lens: Imagery Focus on Research: Generate Questions ................... 41 N Octavio Paz Two Bodies poem ................................ 42 Literary Lens: Metaphor Focus on Research: Develop a Thesis Statement.............. 44 Carlos Solórzano Crossroads: A Sad Vaudeville drama .................
    [Show full text]
  • Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics
    Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics Series Editor Rachel Blau DuPlessis Temple University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics promotes and pursues topics in the burgeoning field of 20th and 21st century poetics. Critical and scholarly work on poetry and poetics of interest to the series includes social location in its relationships to subjectivity, to the construction of authorship, to oeuvres, and to careers; poetic reception and dissemination (groups, movements, formations, institutions); the intersection of poetry and theory; questions about language, poetic authority, and the goals of writing; claims in poetics, impacts of social life, and the dynamics of the poetic career as these are staged and debated by poets and inside poems. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14799 Luke Roberts Barry MacSweeney and the Politics of Post-War British Poetry Seditious Things Luke Roberts King’s College London London, United Kingdom Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics ISBN 978-3-319-45957-8 ISBN 978-3-319-45958-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-45958-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017930177 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
    [Show full text]
  • John MUCKLE London Brakes
    John Muckle was born in the village of Cobham, Surrey, but lived most of his adult life in Essex and London. Amongst other things he has been a copywriter, an editor, a lecturer, a careworker, a book- shop assistant, a library assistant, a freelance writer and a motorcycle courier. In the 1980s he initiated the Paladin Poetry Series and was General Editor of its flagship anthology,The New British Poetry (Paladin, 1988). His previous books include The Cresta Run (short stories), Cyclomotors (a novella with photographic illustrations), and Firewriting and Other Poems (Shearsman Books, 2005). Also by John Muckle Poetry It Is Now As It Was Then (with Ian Davidson) Firewriting and Other Poems Prose The Cresta Run Bikers (with Bill Griffiths) Cyclomotors As General Editor: The New British Poetry (eds., Allnutt, D’Aguiar, Edwards, Mottram) John Muckle London Brakes a novel Shearsman Books Exeter Published in the United Kingdom in 2009 by Shearsman Books 58 Velwell Road Exeter EX4 4LD ISBN 978-1-84861-101-6 First Edition Copyright © John Muckle, 2009. The right of John Muckle to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act of 1988. All rights reserved. Acknowledgements Excerpts from this novel were originally published in Bazzin’ (Tony Baker), Infolio (Tom Raworth) and in Bikers (with poems by Bill Griffiths, Amra Imprint, 1990). With thanks to Dave Cook, Tony Frazer, Chris Noble, Martin Stott — and for Robert. I wish to gratefully acknowledge a Hawthornden Fellowship that was helpful in the early stages of writing this novel.
    [Show full text]
  • Lee Harwood the INDEPENDENT, 5TH VERSION., Aug 14Odt
    ' Poet and climber, Lee Harwood is a pivotal figure in what’s still termed the British Poetry Revival. He published widely since 1963, gaining awards and readers here and in America. His name evokes pioneering publishers of the last half-century. His translations of poet Tristan Tzara were published in diverse editions. Harwood enjoyed a wide acquaintance among the poets of California, New York and England. His poetry was hailed by writers as diverse as Peter Ackroyd, Anne Stevenson, Edward Dorn and Paul Auster . Lee Harwood was born months before World War II in Leicester. An only child to parents Wilfred and Grace, he lived in Chertsey. He survived a German air raid, his bedroom window blown in across his bed one night as he slept. His grandmother Pansy helped raise him from the next street while his young maths teacher father served in the war and on to 1947 in Africa. She and Grace's father inspired in Lee a passion for stories. Delicate, gentle, candid and attentive - Lee called his poetry stories. Iain Sinclair described him as 'full-lipped, fine-featured : clear (blue) eyes set on a horizon we can't bring into focus. Harwood's work, from whatever era, is youthful and optimistic: open.' Lee met Jenny Goodgame, in the English class above him at Queen Mary College, London in 1958. They married in 1961. They published single issues of Night Scene, Night Train, Soho and Horde. Lee’s first home was Brick Lane in Aldgate East, then Stepney where their son Blake was born. He wrote 'Cable Street', a prose collage of location and anti fascist testimonial.
    [Show full text]
  • Image Spam Detection: Problem and Existing Solution
    International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056 Volume: 06 Issue: 02 | Feb 2019 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072 Image Spam Detection: Problem and Existing Solution Anis Ismail1, Shadi Khawandi2, Firas Abdallah3 1,2,3Faculty of Technology, Lebanese University, Lebanon ----------------------------------------------------------------------***--------------------------------------------------------------------- Abstract - Today very important means of communication messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax is the e-mail that allows people all over the world to transmissions, and file sharing network spam [1]. People communicate, share data, and perform business. Yet there is who create electronic spam are called spammers [2]. nothing worse than an inbox full of spam; i.e., information The generally accepted version for source of spam is that it crafted to be delivered to a large number of recipients against their wishes. In this paper, we present a numerous anti-spam comes from the Monty Python song, "Spam spam spam spam, methods and solutions that have been proposed and deployed, spam spam spam spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam…" Like but they are not effective because most mail servers rely on the song, spam is an endless repetition of worthless text. blacklists and rules engine leaving a big part on the user to Another thought maintains that it comes from the computer identify the spam, while others rely on filters that might carry group lab at the University of Southern California who gave high false positive rate. it the name because it has many of the same characteristics as the lunchmeat Spam that is nobody wants it or ever asks Key Words: E-mail, Spam, anti-spam, mail server, filter.
    [Show full text]
  • Nomad Thought in Peter Reading's Perduta Gente
    NOMAD THOUGHT IN PETER READING’S PERDUTA GENTE AND EVAGATORY AND MAGGIE O’SULLIVAN’S IN THE HOUSE OF THE SHAMAN AND PALACE OF REPTILES A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY ÖZLEM TÜRE ABACI IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE DECEMBER 2015 Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences ________________________ Prof. Dr. Meliha ALTUNIŞIK Director I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________ Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nurten BİRLİK Head of Department This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________ Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nurten BİRLİK Supervisor Examining Committee Members Prof. Dr. Nursel İÇÖZ (METU, FLE) ________________________ Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nurten BİRLİK (METU, FLE) ________________________ Prof. Dr. Huriye REİS (H.U., IED) ________________________ Assoc. Prof. Dr. Özlem UZUNDEMİR (Ç.U., ELL) ________________________ Asst. Prof. Dr. Elif ÖZTABAK‐AVCI (METU, FLE) ________________________ PLAGIARISM I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last name : Özlem TÜRE ABACI Signature : iii ABSTRACT NOMAD THOUGHT IN PETER READING’S PERDUTA GENTE AND EVAGATORY AND MAGGIE O’SULLIVAN’S IN THE HOUSE OF THE SHAMAN AND PALACE OF REPTILES Türe Abacı, Özlem Ph.D., Department of English Literature Supervisor: Assoc.
    [Show full text]
  • The Birth of Linguistically Innovative Poetry and the Practice of a Collective Poetics in Robert Sheppard’S Pages and Floating Capital Thurston, SD
    “For which we haven’t yet a satisfactory name” : the birth of Linguistically Innovative Poetry and the practice of a collective poetics in Robert Sheppard’s Pages and Floating Capital Thurston, SD Title “For which we haven’t yet a satisfactory name” : the birth of Linguistically Innovative Poetry and the practice of a collective poetics in Robert Sheppard’s Pages and Floating Capital Authors Thurston, SD Type Book Section URL This version is available at: http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/48250/ Published Date 2019 USIR is a digital collection of the research output of the University of Salford. Where copyright permits, full text material held in the repository is made freely available online and can be read, downloaded and copied for non-commercial private study or research purposes. Please check the manuscript for any further copyright restrictions. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. 1 “For which we haven’t yet a satisfactory name”: The Birth of Linguistically Innovative Poetry and the Practice of a Collective Poetics in Robert Sheppard’s Pages and Floating Capital. In July 1987 Robert Sheppard published the first issue of a little magazine called Pages. The magazine was a humble affair, comprised of four folded A4 sheets to give eight printed pages per issue. Typescript material was pasted into camera ready copy format and photocopied.1 The editorial opens: Anybody concerned for a viable poetry in Britain must be depressed by the persistence of the Movement Orthodoxy from the 1950s into the late 80s; by its consolidation of power for a bleak future; by its neutralising assimilation of the surfaces of modernism; by its annexation of the increasingly fashionable term postmodernism; and by its ignorance – real or affected – of much of the work of the British Poetry Revival.2 This is very much a downbeat tone on which to begin a new enterprise.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduced by Sam Ladkin & Robin Purves
    SAM LADKIN & ROBIN PURVES Four from Britain This introduction aspires to be a brief but accurate guide to the devel- opment of poetry in the uk over the last fifty years or so as it informs the work of the four poets collected in this issue of Chicago Review. Though this is almost certainly the first opportunity for this journal’s readers to engage with the often startling and unfamiliar work of these poets, we want to avoid offering the kind of reassuring exposition that seriously blunts the impact of the poetry, which is designed to confront and unsettle. The poets do not deserve to be smothered in coyness or slick generalization from the outset, so here we aim merely to provide a narrative which eventually but not of necessity leads to them, and to issue a handful of coordinates with which to navigate their very different approaches to their art. The best guides to reading the poetry are undoubtedly the poems themselves, in the seductions and resistances they set up for each reader. § After the Second World War, the experimental arts in Britain were shrunk, or shrunk themselves, to a more-or-less invisible fringe, thanks in part to a readiness to identify linguistic experimentation with the varieties of political extremism which had been waging war in Europe and elsewhere. The poetry ascendant in the early 1950s had vestigial roots in the most mundane elements of Auden’s and Eliot’s modernism, which were combined with the disenchantment and sentimental stoicism of pre-modernists like Arnold and Hardy. This new tendency in poetry was not, therefore, conceptualized as an advance on modernism but as a deliverance from it, a restoration of values that Pound and his affiliates were seen as having scorned: lucidity, mildness, accessibility, etc.
    [Show full text]