tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post2918250592468779377..comments2024-01-24T06:50:01.683-06:00Comments on Samizdat Blog: Something the French Do, Something the Irish Did: Notes on the Audience for Philosophy and PoetryArchambeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-45657891389274562572009-12-19T09:25:27.152-06:002009-12-19T09:25:27.152-06:00How right you are!
"so it seems like Canadia...How right you are!<br /><br />"so it seems like Canadian literary nationalism is more a creature of the ideological state apparatus than anything else."<br /><br />Except that (and I've been trying to promote this idea in my blog & to the one or two out there who'll listen)what the academics are really promoting is a 'Tish'poetry and poststructuralist ideology tied to a radical multiculturalism that, ironically, will see Dennis Cooley as too regional, maybe even regressive.Even literary critics talk as if Derrida, Barthes, Kristeva are the only players in town.<br /><br /> Joanne Saul's "Writing the Roaming Subject: The Biotext in Canadian Literature" is a horrible little work: just the type of work that the Canada-Council, academia and mainstream publishing system promotes.<br /><br /> Experimentalism went terrible wrong here! Canadians never really could assimilate the Olson, Creeley, Duncan aesthetics, something they fumbled with (as is evident in writings in bpNichol, bissett, Wah, etc). I believe Canada's modernist period (of Layton, Dudek, Page, etc) was tragically cut short as a result.Conrad DiDiodatohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18312831623791642286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-20744604341116664662009-12-19T08:13:29.033-06:002009-12-19T08:13:29.033-06:00For those of you who can't get enough about Ca...For those of you who can't get enough about Canada (both of you):<br /><br />I just ran across a <a href="http://www.prairiefire.ca/interview_jhc_cooley.html" rel="nofollow"><i>Prairie Fire</i> interview with Dennis Cooley</a>, one of the poets I associate with Canadian nationalism/prairie regionalism in poetry. He talks a bit about the "heady nationalism" he felt when he started writing poetry. Interestingly, I think, this nationalism played pretty well with government agencies, but never really took off with a broad public. I imagine this has something to do with the nature of Canadian nationalism: it doesn't burn in people's hearts the way Irish nationalism did in the early part of the 20th century, because there had been no terrible oppression. <br /><br />I remember reading a study of the best-selling books in Canada, compared to the books on the university syllabi, and the findings were similar: the populace mostly read American popular lit, but the academy pushed Canadian-themed books by Canadians -- so it seems like Canadian literary nationalism is more a creature of the ideological state apparatus than anything else. Which is neither here nor there as far as the work goes: Dennis is a fine poet. He was also a prof of mine, and the teacher I most wanted to emulate in my own teaching.Archambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-62242285309587157502009-12-18T21:36:23.019-06:002009-12-18T21:36:23.019-06:00I remember the Canada Council! When I was growing...I remember the Canada Council! When I was growing up in Manitoba it funded all kinds of self-consciously regional writing. It was all about art as the expression of regional identity (prairie-looking painting, stories of life in the little Mennonite towns, the attempt to capture regional accent in poetry, etc.) Some of the work was good, some not so good, most of it produced by people who sincerely believed in what they were doing -- but it regionalism trumped aesthetics. <i>Prairie Fire</i> was the big literary mag for this. I imagine they're still doing some of it, but haven't really kept in touch.<br /><br />And yeah, public funding here is small, and looks to be staying that way.<br /><br />Best,<br /><br />BobArchambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-51493746451117170762009-12-18T17:27:41.875-06:002009-12-18T17:27:41.875-06:00The taste for philosophy and poetry together is a ...The taste for philosophy and poetry together is a postmod thing (Marjorie Perloff), meaning poetry's been opened up to what were considered 'extrinsic' to it (philosophy,politics, ethics, etc): a fact the Europeans have exploited more creatively than North Americans because with them the tradition's been around a lot longer.<br /><br />No American intellectuals (like Lévy), at least not since Buckley? Canada can boast of John Ralston Saul, and that's as good as it gets since he's also been tied to a sort of national identity agenda.I wish there were here in Canada a similar movement from national identity to poetry and philosophy because that would certainly kill the Canada-Council (state-sponsored) Art regime that's responsible for a lot of second-rate writing.<br /><br />Something France, America and Ireland will never suffer from.Conrad DiDiodatohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18312831623791642286noreply@blogger.com