But is it —?
Is the question of knowledge
of the first definition of literature.
It could be a laundry list,
her recipes wouldn’t be,
moving through historically
would be the question
not the matter of reading:
only certain things are admitted.

You’ve also got this word literary
which doesn’t get you very far
but an automatic selection:
this person has literature,
do you have French?
This weasel word literary,
the realm of letters or books,
two is the process
three is the product;
but the question you’re burning to ask,
educated to a certain level,
being told what’s good
in the particular generation –
it would exclude poetry.
If someone’s gone through the trouble
– may I pass round,
shall we just talk through
(rather – jolly good)
(and yes yes).

A spiritual offering:
the depth of a shopping list
if it’s about to launch.
It starts out with we
it can swallow other
fifteen minutes,
you don’t get that in
whole sets of
judgement of the
criteria of the
familiar.

The reveal:
a property, how we read it,
we can find elements;
today we would not,
conventionally.
The product of labour
presented as a question:
is it literature.

Does it make sense? Not that much, really, but still a lot more than I expected. This is a found poem, based on overheard bits of today’s UEA Café Conversation, titled ‘But is it Literature?’. Much as the session itself, the poem ends at the beginning, inevitably.