Translation of Eric Mottram's A Faithful Private - 7 -excerpts from his "Notes on Poetics" by T Wignesan
(Note: With this post, I bring to a close EM's pamphlet collection: Faithful Private, GENERA editions by Colin Simms, issue 13 (Place:?), 1976, n.p. Translation of No. 6: "Courbet, Elegy 8" I had already posted up on September 26, 2017.
EM's "Notes on Poetics" appeared in The Journal of Comparative Poietics, Vol. I, n° 1 (Paris), 1989, pp. 37-44. Founder-Editor: T. Wignesan)
"Since the 1960s poetry readings have become seriously effective event in a poet's life in Britain - that is, not some actor actorizing himself at the expense of the poet and the poem, but the interacting performance of poet, his own work and an audience. At least, in a small place. The large hall, probably these days with absurd electronic amplification, discourages interpenetration and encourages poet-demagogues, and keeps the poet apart and evasive - but, of course, some official establishment poets thrive on this, poet-laureates and the like. ( ) During the 1970-1976 period when th Poetry Society, later the National Poetry Centre, in London, became for the first time a centre for truly contemporary poetry, we held regular readings, but also public interview-discussions - one poet at a time - as part of evenings billed as Poetry Information. ( ) Poetry had been taken out of the classroom and the academic judgmental enclosure. ( ) and performance also came to include the long-playing record, the cassette, and the video-tape: the poet's voice and physical presence. The speed of the poem, its sounds and rhythms were offered by their composer as part of poetry, not restricted to print typography. As with music and theatre, performance is the life of the work. Information and exchange of interests founded a poetics that could hold everything within the act of performance between writer, reader, audience and publisher. ( ) Most poetry readings are recorded by someone, so that the (poet's) commentary (on his work) and the performance become part of the poem, and as it is with recorded music, readings can, and often do, vary as - with any luck - the performances increase in number. They become part of a general poetics, too: no proper account of twentieth century poetry is possible without them. Poetics is both the sound and the typographic notation - and notational forms are endless, except for the pathetically classicist." (JCL, pp. 37-38)
7.
est-ce que vous avez envie de commencer ?
n'importe oω
..ce que ne pas
..dιtritus ?
le baptisme est la tκte sous l'eau
un prκtre coupe le sexe
..un examen de sang tenu ΰ l'hauteur du ciel
..renouvelle les matιriaux
..autrefois les mots
..une lιthargie qui prιvoie
ΰ prιsent des parties de la vie
..pas des conquκtes mais l'acceptation
..des dons et ne pas de montons
..ou les restes du festin
..mais les feuilles d'invitation
en avanηant nous ιchangeons des morceaux
ayant d'orgasms dans l'un et de l'autre
comme on s'en fait avec des photos et des poθmes
..sans un plafond sur vos yeux:
..des trous bien dιfinis de faite et l'ambition
..contribuent ΰ faire celui qui agisse:
ΰ l'autoritι l'acolyte et le secrιtaire
caressent les poignιes du pontiff
..le Mohave n'est pas silencieux
..vous n'arrivez pas l'entendre
pas de Kalahari en (Grande) Bretagne
en s'excluant Fleet Street
Portland Place Shepherds Bush
Great Turnstile .entendu avec facilitι sur chaque
.signalement de rue dans la ville
.si vous fermez les presses
.en dehors dans la parque oω Shiva
.entre en tant que Herne
.unis pour toujours:
.partageant le beat aux couteaux:
.un ιtranger entre dans cette verdure
.les crevasses dans le vent d'antan
.les mauvaises herbes dans les fissures de la ville
.la glace rivet la terre ΰ la forκt
le livre sterling on dit est en train de chuter
les banquiers mangent leur repas avec hβte
la Presse trouve plus d'actualitιs:
et vous connaissez-vous le remθde ?
Nous oui
As I look back on the 20th century and development of poetry I see it best expressed not in the Greenwich Village coffeehouse with the obscure ravings of a madman, but in the lament of the forgotten people through folksongs, soul and other great music that came to be the greatest poetry of the century. Few would argue that Bob Dylan was the greatest poet of that century. But I would not deny the British invasion with other great poetry, perhaps coming from four scruffy boys singing about Abbey Lane and eventually coming up with the brilliant Imagine or While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
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