All entries for Monday 21 January 2008

Aggressive Interview with Rupert Loydell

Writing about web page http://gistsandpiths.blogspot.com/2008/01/aggressive-interview-1-rupert-loydell.html

I've just posted an 'aggressive interview' on Gists and Piths, with Rupert Loydell, editor of Stride. (So called, because I took the opportunity to fire a few dirty questions and throw in some cheap gibes, to liven up the subject.)

Stride is an independent poetry publishing house with an emphasis on experimental writing. Notable recent anthologies include The Gift, ed. David Morley, The Allotment, ed. Andy Brown; as well as a great range of material by the recently departed poet, essayist and artist, Peter Redgrove. The press has a strong international flavour, especially as regards American experimental poetry.

The interview opens up a few interesting channels, to do with how marginalised cultures filter through to the mainstream. This is worth thinking about both in terms of the 'avant garde' experimenters and also marginalised cultures - black british, asian, middle eastern, esp. Palestinian and Afghan, for example - in relation to dominant trends in western cultures.

In poetry, the mainstream vs. avant garde debate has been bandied about too often for some tastes. The media tend to pick on the polarity as a simple, dumbed-down way of presenting certain cultural phenomena (can't believe I just called poetry that) that don't have widespread appeal. It reduces the argument to an understandable abstraction.

I find the debate interesting mainly from an anthropological perspective: it highlights how tribalism can operate in different areas; it's a microplay of the greater theatre of economics and empire. However, it's also a reductive debate, and gets in the way of my ability to engage properly with the actual content and technique of various poetries.

I'm not yet sure whether my interest is healthy, but I do know that I have a tendency towards the more experimental and challenging end of the cultural spectrum. And I'm often overtaken by an urge to spread the word about the things that move me most; but the resistance of more conservative readers and forces to these texts depresses me no end.

Read, read, read. Read everything - trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window.

-- William Faulkner

George Ttoouli : 21 Jan 2008 10:00 |  Tags: Gists And Piths Interview Rupert Loydell |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem