Jane Robinson Honest Ulsterman

"Kerridge writes that ‘[The Oval Window] cannot be read quickly and uninterruptedly, except as a beautiful but enigmatic surface, until a great deal of preparation has taken place – so much, that the idea of the eventual, uninterrupted reading turns into a mirage, always ahead.’ The rather obvious response to this kind of reading has two parts. The first suggests that, before Google, or getting hold of a lot of Prynne’s own supporting material, The Oval Window and much else of Prynne’s poetry would have ‘only’ been ‘a beautiful but enigmatic surface’. It is, surely, the sheer beauty of so much of Prynne’s writing which places it so ‘head and shoulders’ above almost any other British language-oriented poetry; and it is this beautiful surface which attracts any reader in the first place. The second part of this response is to suggest, somewhat cynically, that sourcing writing is a game which academics like to play." Ian Pople The Manchester Review