Category: Events, Academic, General, Speakers
By the end of Saturday afternoon, rather than walking away with any definite answers, I found myself left with more uncertainty. Although all of the speakers agreed upon the innovative nature and consequent importance of MacNeice’s poetry, I became conscious of an underlying dispute over what poetry and poetic genius actually are. In the final lecture, Jon Stallworthy claimed the mark of a truly gifted poet is ‘a distinctive style from a young age’ and evidence of a ‘consistent and distinctive voice’ running through all their writing. He pointed out the valid application of this claim to MacNeice’s work; his early poems published in the school magazine ‘The Marlburian’ show the same skill at using refrains and lyrical language that is developed in his more mature works.
However, when talking to Ciaran Carson about the process of writing poetry later on, I mentioned Stallworthy’s mark about inner stylistic consistency. The response was one of utter contempt: Carson seemed to take it almost as a challenge to his own poetic genius. He described writing as a process of discovery, claiming that to write according to a style which you are comfortable is to cheat, and that any poems produced so self-consciously are nothing but lies.
Being presented with these conflicting views made me wonder what the correct approach actually is, not just to MacNeice but also to poetry as a whole. Eventually, it was MacNeice himself who reminded me that the most important thing is to accept our uncertainty; ‘in brute reality, there is no road that is right entirely’.
Charlotte Pyper (MM U6)
Read further reviews of the day here.