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Simon Cutts and Stuart Mills

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Private Tutor Issue 3 (text only)

October 1967

The true concern of the poet should be the avoidance of
ugliness.

Art exists by the tolerance of others.

It might be argued therefore that a poet using his craft as a vehicle 
for politics will ultimately find his readership amongst politicians,
the more sensitive finding this misuse of poetry irksome and a deceit.

In this country today a large percentage of poetry being written by
younger poets avoids the integral beauty exemplified by the fusion of
form language and motif. They believe that only they feel the rigour
of life in its true intensity. It does not occur to them that other people,
not artists, may cherish most in art that placid remoteness from the
sordid. They may not wish to share the poet's fixation for gym slips
or his views on on the criminality of total war.
They too are human.
They are too human,

The General
The General stands
Among a hundred thousand men.
He lifts his hand,
They move . . . and then
Nothing can be seen for a long time.
When it clears again
He is the only one standing.
Christopher Logue.
This crude and trite poem epitomizes the misuse of art. Not only
does it lack form (its most serious fault) it lacks authority.
It is an affectation.
EXERCISE. Read the poems of Wilfred Owen, Julian Grenfell and
Isaac Rosenburg. Compare them to the lines written
by Mr. Logue. Try to introduce the concept of innocence
into any observation you may care to make.


Tarasque Press The Trent Book Shop Trent Bridge Nottingham

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