The Empire Strikes Back (weakly)
It turns out that the website ‘interview’ with me, reproduced here 13 April 05, was a little disingenuous. By chance I stumbled on the site and found that it was something of a set up; although the questionnaire was published as written, it was contextualised with mocking criticism with a link to a Bloodaxe poet who irritably attacks my position. In the spirit of Silliman’s analysis of the fate of so-called ‘School of Quietude’ poets doomed to be forgotten, it doesn’t really matter which poet it is. But to paraphrase Socrates – a wise man can learn from a fool so it’s worth considering his arguments - some which is interesting. First the criticism: how can the Text Festival claim to be anti-establishment and have some funding from the Arts Council. The tongue-in-cheek response is that this was acknowledged prominently in the opening exhibition with the display of four poems from Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Death to the Arts Council series. But the actual answer rests in the misunderstan