A Dilemma

Had a very jolly time this afternoon zooming into the annual Lit Seminar run by the Gifted Education Branch. I've been employed for quite a few years now as a 'Lit Critic', sort of passing judgment on and giving feedback to various accomplished youngsters presenting their research to and for each other. Since I'm not exactly simpatico with the academic side of lit, and the writing of analysis of such makes me increasingly queasy, I usually feel like a bit of an imposter in the role. But the enthusiasm of the participants always wins me over with regard to the essential worth of the enterprise and invariably fuels my own. Which equally inevitably leaves me with the headache of deciding whether to incorporate aspects of what comes up in the course of the presentations into my own further reading. (But that's a happy enough headache, in its way.)

So now, reflecting on this afternoon's offerings, I'm wondering if I need to get hold of a Collected of Arthur Yap's poems. (There's one published by Epigram Books.) The possibility that the poet might just be the genuinely major figure of the earliest decades of Sing lit had previously occurred to me, but I've never engaged with anything like the full body of his work, and now might just be the time. The problem is, though, that I'm committed to the great Henry Vaughan read-through as things stand and I foolishly jotted down a list of other poets that might well follow, given the contents of my shelves. In the interests of full disclosure these comprise (not in order of merit, chronology, or even personal taste): Clare, Pound, Frost, Tennyson, Eliot, Dryden. Wow, quite a gathering, eh? The thing is, though, that I'm very familiar with all of these luminaries, but Yap would be a lot 'newer'. And I really need to read more from the region.

It was great, by the by, that three of the presentations this afternoon were located firmly in the local scene. I detect a growing confidence regarding the value of the work created in this Far Place. Must say, I'm hoping I might have influenced one or two of the participants to set about creating their own stuff (as opposed to writing dreary analysis - which I managed to avoid saying.) Unfortunately I forgot to round off with that as my final message - the thing about creating, not the slur on analysis. But since most young people have the wisdom not to listen to their elders' advice but do their own thing I doubt there was any harm done by the omission.