While I was not entirely sure if my personal attention to the "Pyrocene" had any hint of a positive outlook on the head, the example seemed to be sufficient enough to spark a little joy in some of the folks who watched it. Many of the replies to my invitation, however, noted the difficulty of the "positive" part of the prompt (even though it was only a small remark in the email). All replies were filled with wonderful praises of gratitude . . . but with fewer clips than I had been anticipating. Nevertheless, below are the responses I received, and I want to thank all who contributed –– even if it was through an email to decline –– as these are the types of conversations we should continue to have and circulate on our sites.

I will begin with Shobhana Bhattacharji at the University of Delhi, India. She did not film a clip, but the development of our email communications are a fitting place to begin.

On July 21st, Shobhana wrote:

My dear Kaila

Thank you for your email and the invitation to be a part of the conference. I liked your video very much, the idea and the presentation. 

My initial feeling was –– Nope, I cannot possibly contribute anything to 'Futures.' But if I may have the weekend to mull over it some more, I will get back to you by Sunday evening or Monday morning. If you have been following news from India, you will know about the harrowing events here. It is difficult to think about Romantic poetry when the daily news is of this kind. But surely I am wrong. That is what I would like to think about for the next two days. If any sane idea finds its way in through the sludge of daily news, I will write you a piece for your session.

On the 25th of July, Shobhana writes back:

My dear Kaila

Sorry for missing my own deadline. I simply cannot think of what I could say about 'futures' other than the obvious, viz., What is done to poetry in usual classroom situations? Does it need reform or radical overhaul? How is this to be done?  I have written a bit. but it is not going anywhere except into cliches. Thanks again for your kind invitation to join this useful discussion but please scratch my name from your list.

I responded and said that I completely understood, noting that my "something positive" prompt in the idea for the project was proving to be difficult for many people I had asked. I asked her as well if I could share some of our emails today.

On the 30th of July Shobhana wrote back:

My dear Kaila

What a kind letter. Thank you. You are free to use anything from my email. I have also attached a brief text of 428 words in case you want to use it. As I told Bernard, each time I thought about your request I hit a barrier of cliches as big as the Great Wall of China. My 428 words sound finger-waggingly prescriptive. Put it down to an occupational hazard of a being an undergrad teacher for a very long time. And feel free to junk it if it does not meet your requirement. 

FUTURES (For Kaila Rose)

From experience of four decades of teaching in the University of Delhi, poetry is taught in two ways. 

 1) One is to focus on the words on the page, on the poem as artefact, on showing how it is put together.  'Pure textual analysis’ is exciting and not easy in the case of Romantic poetry which used the whole ‘armoury of the human mind,’ as Coleridge said. And yet there is insufficient emphasis on it in my university and very likely in other parts of the world as well. Rather than looking at the poem as artefact, students are encouraged to look at 'what the poet is trying to say'-- a common phrase in examination papers here -- as if poetry was merely failed prose, as if the poet had attempted to write prose, then given up and taken refuge in poetry, as if poetry was as 'easy' as the silliest pop sings ('Do do do What you've done done done Before, babee.'). Often, using the evidence of the poem alone, students are told (and examined) on what the poem is 'about', i.e. content analyses . This way of talking about poetry has never made sense to me. There should be a lot more discussion of the craft  of a poem and less rushing into what the poet 'is trying to say.’ There is nothing revolutionary about this, is there.

2) Coleridge was talking about the kind of language needed for the kind of poetry he wanted to write. But look at his metaphor – the armoury of the mind: Weapons of the mind, to defend the mind, poetry as a battlefield. In those warlike times, a warlike metaphor was inevitable and yet we think of the Romantics as poets of peace and calm, though of course they struggled for that calm for themselves and their times was a goal of their warfare in words. I don’t think this is stressed enough. Our world is even more engulfed in war and violence than theirs. To notice this, to pay attention to this, is surely a way to make these writers poets for our time. Like us, they negotiated a minefield of official and unofficial censorship. How are teachers to deal with this, to make it visible, without jeopardising their jobs and lives? It is a challenge we have to take on board. The context of poems is the second and related way in which poetry is sometimes taught. There is nothing revolutionary about suggesting that we need mor[e] of this when we talk about Romantic poetry in these times.

Shobhana Bhattacharji                                   30 July 2023

428 words

My email exchange with Shobhana was both enjoyable and thought-provoking. When I decided to include the few emails in this presentation, I was reminded––of course––of Byron's letters and evolution of ideas through correspondence. Shobhana's attention to the difficulties of what we teach and how we may or may not be able to, brought me to my next clip from one of my favorite humans on this earth, Bernard Beatty, who was able to teach Byron for years. Yet, also finding the "positive" prompt difficult, Bernard leans outside of the classroom to find other possibilities for art and engagement.