Harold Pinter is not a poet...
Harold Pinter wrote a really bad poem and tried to get it published in various literary magazines, then he tried to get it published in a newspaper or two.
Now he is
claiming cencorship...
bq. The first place I sent it to was the London Review of Books. I received a very odd letter, which said, in sum, that the poem had considerable force, but it was for that very reason that they were not able to publish it.
bq. So I sent it to the Guardian and the then literary editor came on the telephone to me and said, 'Oh dear.' He said, "Harold, this is really ...
And more from the Guardian editor:
bq. He said, 'Well, you know, Harold, we are a family newspaper.'
And off to the Observer it went next:
bq. The next Sunday nothing happened. And then the following Sunday nothing happened. So I called the editor. He said, 'Oh dear, Harold, I'm afraid that I've run into one or two problems with your poem.'
And where to next..
bq. I then sent the poem to the literary editor of the Independent, saying I hadn't sent it to him in the first place because I did not think the Independent would publish it. But now that everybody had turned it down, the London Review of Books, the Guardian and the Observer, perhaps I was wrong about the Independent! To cut a long story very short, the literary editor wanted to publish it but he felt he had to show it to the editor. The editor sat on it for a few days and then made no comment except to say the Independent was not going to publish the poem. And I've never had any explanation. Nothing. It was simply No.
And finally, scraping the bottom of the barrel, he sends it off to a rag in the colonies:
bq. I did send it to the New York Review of Books, just as a laugh. The editor thanked me warmly for but said he was afraid they couldn't use it.
And this is censorship? The poem is as bad as Amiri Baraka's
little effort that won him such worldwide acclaim...
Posted by DaveH at April 15, 2004 11:32 AM