Odds and Ends Essays, Blogs, Internet Discussions, Interviews and Miscellany

would disagree with this, either.
3) ‘(Likewise, I think it’s reductive to suggest that there is “a” public sphere and a private sphere). An “avant-garde”
poet (more scare quotes, more scarecrows) might engage in a variety of activities - write a poem, attend a
demonstration, stop by the polling station, sign a petition, blog a bit, march on Downing Street . . . in each case, the
meaning of the politics of these actions needs to be “produced” (can’t, in other words, be assumed)’.
Again, I agree with you. I don’t think there is a sharp divide between public and private spheres. I’m not sure
Archameau does, either. He mentions these spheres in the following context, when he says:
For the most part, the claims I engage in the essay have to do with the purported power of a specific
kind of experimental poetry to make an impact on the public sphere. The Cambridge History of
Twentieth Century Literature, for example, claims that this kind of poetry sets out to be “capable of
challenging the public sphere”.
And David Shepard has said that such poems ‘recombine a language fragmented into technical jargons’
incorporating the vocabulary of specialised discourses into the poetry and thereby ‘return[ing] this knowledge to
the public sphere from its sequestration in the ivory tower’.
He seems, here, to be addressing the claims of others that such poetry has efficacy in the public sphere.
4) ‘One thing (some) avant-garde poetry has been very good at, I’d suggest, is in looking at the conditions and costs
of politics (in all these instances) as something unstable, unsettled, slippery and often delusive. To bludgeon all of
that into a mash with the club of “efficacy” doesn’t strike me as terribly useful’.
Again, I agree. Poetry can’t be politically effective in the short-term. As Tim Allen said in another thread [discussion]
on this topic, any poetic influence can only be measured over the long-term. I don’t think Archameau would say it
can’t be. I think he’s simply saying what you and I are saying, that poetic influence is not an immediate thing.
Jeremy Green
Fwiw . . . that’s really not at all what I was saying. This question or point about “effectiveness” is either crashingly
banal-
PAXMAN [a former British TV news anchor]: Tell me, Prime Minister, how have your planned public sector cuts been
shaped by your reading of J. H. Prynne?
CAMERON [David Cameron, a former British Prime Minister]: Well, Unanswering Rational Shore [a book by Prynne]
did give me pause, but in the end I find Prynne’s recent work rather a tough nut to crack, though I do like the one
about the weasels.
-or wielded in such a way as to obscure more interesting questions . . . Or: What kinds of transactions take place
between text and reader in an innovative work? How might these be comprehended? Are they in any sense
generative of a political imagination? (a leading question, sure). Is carnivalizing a range of discourses sufficient when
late capital’s technodada does it already? Or even more specifically: Does Bruce Andrews’ poetic assault on syntax
and semantics best achieve his declared aims? Has Prynne, as Wilkinson suggested, written himself into a corner?
Why is Douglas Oliver’s ostensibly political workless successful than his earlier writing? . . . so on, so forth . . .
Jeffrey Side
I don’t think Archameau is questioning the more “nuanced” aspects of political poetry that you mention, and I don’t
think I have been either. One does assume, though, that some of the poets engaging with these issues are not doing so
merely to exercise their philosophical wings, and do, indeed, hope that some positive influence is born of it-either
within the individual reader or wider society at a later stage in time. To the extent that they are, I think questions of
“effectiveness” are, indeed, relevant and shouldn’t be too easily dismissed.
However, as I made clear in my last response to you, I am in agreement with what you have said, and I’m sure
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