I didn’t think you would. My apologies to anyone who thinks reading The Dead-Beat a waste of time.

Link to Owen’s Strange Meeting:

http://home.tiscali.be/ericlaermans/cultural/owen/strange-meeting.html

Never complain and never explain. My excuse is a slight fever. Forgive me, or don’t.

I still fail to see anything ironic about what Norm did. It is not uncommon, especially in english letters, to take a poem and change it to apply to a topical matter. What’s the big deal. Poems aren’t sacred objects, except perhaps in these depressing times when little decent poetry is written. Norm criticizes Pinter in his way, you, sorta, criticize him in yours.

The Dead-Beat absolves the enemy while damning with irony the non-combatants and the care-givers. It’s not a great poem, but then you post it with some examples of Pinter’s recent poetical work and, by comparison, it is a great poem…

…and if you do want to imitate, etc. in a few verses of your own composing you can use irony (I’d think effectively) and the relative obsurity of the source material doesn’t involve annoying some readers who are familiar with the more famous source poem and think your effort demeaning to “poetry” in much the same way you think are Pinter’s efforts. There’s some irony in that.

Irony? Please explain. Perhaps it is too obvious for me.

Oh, I don’t know, I thought he did all right. I don’t see the relevance of your selection though; it is a decent poem, but there are many such. What makes it apropos to Pinter winning the prize?

Better choice:

http://home.tiscali.be/ericlaermans/cultural/owen/the-dead-beat.html

Pinter reads small and Norm, posing as a poet, doesn’t have to be read at all.