[Cally Conan-Davies]

I've just read this thread for the first time in months - I had no idea it had developed in this direction! As you can see at the start, I love Eliot. I spent an afternoon with him, and I don't know about alive - who ever really knows another person? - but he was great company dead! He has come so close to my life. I cannot imagine how different things would be if I had never read 'Marina' - if 'Marina' had not been there when I needed it. I don't care how it got here - it's 'Marina' I needed.

I also find that my great-great-great (would there be one more great?) grandfather John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, has been maligned by one Whitworth!

I feel all my beloveds are being attacked, and I am just piping up to say I still love them, for always. Not to defend anything, or anyone, but just to say I don't know people, but I know poetry when it confronts me. I deal with what confronts me. And I'm so grateful for everyone who has come before and gone ahead.

best wishes to all!

Cally

[Mary Meriam]

Originally Posted by Cally Conan-Davies

I deal with what confronts me.

So do I, Cally. So should we all.

Yep, Richard, I think that we are all agreeing in our own quirky ways pretty much along the lines that you identify.

There are poets whose works and personalities I don't particularly like. Is the dislike of the works because of my dislike of the personality? But there are some whose personalities I do like but much of whose work leaves me cold.

I'm not particularly fond of Eliot, works or bloke.

I detest Pound on both scores.

There's not much in Auden that I like (though some), and I reckon he plagiarised Laura Riding.

I reckon Frost's a mate though, and writes the goods.

I know I would have loathed Larkin personally, but I think the poems are right up there.

Laura Riding sounds like a total loony, and hell to be around, but I love her work: she is one of my very favourite poets. Unfashionable: I don't think I've communicated with another person who likes her writing.

I don't think I would have had much patience with Yeats the man, though I don't mind some of his stuff.

Rimbaud sounds like a real shite, but he wrote some amazing poems.

Dylan Thomas -- well, problematic but I think we would have got on; I do like the poems, even though they're not really in right now.

Shakespeare and I hit it off well personally, and he certainly can bang out a poem (often embedded in a play).

I'm very fond of Keats, man and poet. And John Clare. I can't help liking Byron, for all his posing, man and poet.

Shelley's a bit.... I dunno.

John Donne, Kit Marlowe -- mates! John Skelton: close friend and bloody good poet.

Famous Seamus seems OK: nice poems.

Ted Hughes would be a chum, and I like a lot of his poetry, but dislike a lot too.

Sylvia I adore.

[Mark Allinson]

Don't make out like you're the only one who believes in free speech.

"Free speech"!!!

What a joke!

Bob, I am not the one who demands that fine poets shall be BANNED and NEVER be heard on this site because of extra-poetical utterances.

Which is exactly what I am talking about - putting politics in place of poetry.

[Philip Quinlan]

Wagner knocks out a good tune, but I wouldn't fancy a drink with him.

Never goes his round for one thing...

John Milton wrote the odd good line but I wouldn't go out clubbing with him.

[Gregory Dowling]

We seem to have wandered far from the topic. The overall point that some great poetry/art/music has come from unsavoury sources has been generally accepted. And, as Roger says, nobody on this thread has talked of rejecting Eliot's poetry because of his politics or racism or whatever: indeed, everyone seems to have bent over backwards to state the reverse.

A general comment on the term PC. I don't remember ever seeing this term used other than satirically, by people opposed to it. But most of the time when people refer to PC, they seem to be talking about what used to be known very simply as courtesy: not causing unwarranted offence.

Greg, I respectfully disagree. To me the term "political correctness" strongly foregrounds, by its very terminology, the notion of political. It seems impossible to disentangle and expunge the notion of politics from it, and the strong primary meaning of conforming to someone's political agenda.

Now you might argue that "courtesy" could be said to have similar resonances, since it's derived from the original idea of behaviour acceptable at a royal court, but I'd disagree with that argument. As Shakespeare knew, a politician is an ignoble self-seeker very different from a Prince, and "courtesy" evokes a spirit of chivalry, nobility and generosity which I just don't pick up from "political correctness". I think that to many people "political correctness" suggests a kind of humorless pedantic spiritless coercion which can sometimes be more anti-democratic and anti-life than that which it claims to combat.

When I think of Courtesy I think of chivalry, merriment and Amour Cortois. When I think of political correctness I think of the cartoon mentioned in James Booth's excellent article, where one reader says to another "I find I simply can't touch a poet who isn't a vegetarian."

[Janet Kenny]

Originally Posted by Holly Martins

I hear what you say, Janet, but on a personal level, these days I find it hard to listen to Wagner without thinking of the little squirt's noisome pontificating, as I can't listen to Bach without being aware of his inner goodness. You are right, we should be able to divorce the man from the work, but I'm not sure I can do it.

Yes Holly,
But when I performed in Bach's 'Passion according to St. Matthew' in England, I became conscious of the seeds that were grown to plants in Wagner . I looked at the audience and didn't quite like what I saw. Bach was part of the same culture as Wagner.

Sorry Gregory. I had missed this message addressed to me.


Eliot was the first poet who made me aware of modern possibilities in poetry.

[Gregory Dowling]

Greg, I respectfully disagree. To me the term "political correctness" strongly foregrounds, by its very terminology, the notion of political. It seems impossible to disentangle and expunge the notion of politics from it, and the strong primary meaning of conforming to someone's political agenda.

Paul, maybe I didn't make myself clear. I agree that the term "political correctness" has all those connotations. What I am saying is that I have never heard anyone use the term other than derogatorily. However, very often it seems to me that what people are stigmatising as "political correctness" ("political correctness gone mad" is the commonest usage, at least in UK journalism) is simply what used to be referred to as courtesy - the unwillingness to give unnecessary and unwarranted offence by your behaviour or language.