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The peace movementâs fight has gone
Lloyd Evans - Features ColumnEFL ...To be fair, the raw ingredients of poetry are certainly present here, namely language and feeling. Some of these efforts are not a million miles away from becoming poetry, in the way that a cow in a field is not a million miles away from becoming a hamburger. But a number of technical refinements will be required first: lyricism, music, metaphor, imagination, a sense of pace and rhythm, habits of verbal organisation, the feel for a resonant phrase that lingers in the mind after the page has been turned. All these are lacking from nearly all of these poems. Nor is there much political sophistication. Robin Lim (âvolunteer midwife in Indonesia and author of Eating Wisely For Twoâ) condemns the lies of her âso-called Presidentâ. And Di Brandt (âteacher of creative writing and author of questions i asked my motherâ) has a pithier summary of her leader: âlike Herod, like Hitler, like Bushâ. Ironic that the Westâs leadership should be demonised here in exactly the same way that, according to the protesters, the West simplifies and vilifies Islam. The Coalitionâs motives are likewise reduced to crude shorthand. Greed, oil-thirst, blood-lust and a batty desire to build a 1,000-year Reich from the profits of milkshakes and Mickey Mouse concessions. These are the only motives the anthology acknowledges. Deft knifework in the Poets Corner. Posted by: mrp 2004-05-07 |
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