DEBATE AND SWITCH, PART 2
PLAYERS:
BARRY OBUMMAH
MITT BOMBNEY
SANDY CROWFEET
CROWFEET
We've convened inside this converted New York speakeasy in order to further fuel the indignation of the American people. I'm channeling the questions from our concerned audience for our two presidential candidates. Mr Bombney, you won the last canasta hand, so you're first. Could you give a condensed essay on the incorporating of disparate elements of job growth, Chinese competition, and personal inertia?
BOMBNEY
I'd be delighted to, Sandy. The Chinese people are hard working, and their clever satraps have tapped into a national and practical gestalt whereby the minions control their collective fates by a steady and hopeful application of elbow grease and illusion. Our procurement -- that is, the consumerist expectation of the American people -- from this exchange will help that 72 per cent chunk of our GDP rise by the trillionful. Mind boggling in its efficacy is the model, elegant in its non-variation.
OBUMMAH
Jobs grow when government grows. I'm proud of the fact that jobs have increased in every month I've been in office for the segment of the population that really needs it, multi-level bureaucracy. There's been too much of Mr Bombney's consumerist bible-school economics in our national debates. I promise to grow the [aside: apparently?] non-consumerist public payroll by leaps and bounds, or by decrees and rounds, if you will.
CROWFEET
Energy. How can we get more of it from within? Mr President.
OBUMMAH
The jig's up. We're an apathetic lot who needs the beneficent helping hand of me and mine in our infinite capacity so we don't self-combust from that last chocolate wafer. We're one more Krispy Kreme from joining those rotund unfortunates my wife has been busy reforming. On the unrenewable front, more wind energy R & D. I'm a good source of infinite wind, but unless and until we, as a scientific carrot-and-stick paradigm follower, can discover how to milk my insincere rhetorical hubris like the swelled dugs of a Jersey derrick, I'm afraid it's a continual series of Hail Marys for crackpot start-ups in the basements of Frankenstein warriors.
BOMBNEY
Who needs R & D? We've got North American sovereignty. Canada's pipeline solves most of it. And I hear the sludge of North Dakota and the shale lodes in Colorado will keep our Hummers humming for the next two hundred years. The middle of the Earth is a caramel nougat!
CROWFEET
We interrupt this program to rejoin CNN for its usual programming in an attempt to recapture our falling Neilsons since our instapolls have discovered massive channel-changing in the swing centers of Ohio and Pennsylvania. So -- it's a Kardashian documentary you won't want to miss. To those few who are outraged by the unexpected change of plans: it's all entertainment, folks. Thanks to our contestants, and thanks once again to the American viewers for allowing us to sell you the best in ear wax cleanser and dodgy insurance.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
New Reviews -- and a World Premiere play!
My review of Ken Babstock's Methodist Hatchet is out in the newly published #62 edition of subTerrain. And since my long blogging absence, subTerrain #61 contains my review of Robert J. Wiersema's personal memoir and Bruce Springsteen odyssey, Walk Like A Man. I'd also like to put in a good word for Jon Boilard's "Storm Chaser", his terrific short story in #61.
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DEBATE AND SWITCH
Players:
BARRY OBUMMAH
MITT BOMBNEY
JIM LAIRER
LAIRER
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We’re here at historic
Denver University, where the students are as high as the altitude after
discovering – post-acceptance – that their $100,000 tuition extraction won’t
get them an interview as a clerk at “Organic Beans ‘R’ Us” after the four year
parade of cultural sensitivity training. High on forgetting about it, that is.
Speaking of forgettable, here are our two contestants tonight. A Mister Mitt
Bombney from Detroit by way of
Massachusetts, and a Mister Barry Obummah, residing president of these divided
States. Gentlemen, let’s begin. Mr Obummah, you won the pre-debate dwarf toss.
You’ll go first. The first question is: just what is this thing we all call the
economy anyway, and why should we care about it so much?
OBUMMAH
Good question, Jim. Well, the economy is largely about
creating these instruments called CDOs, CDs, CDSs, reverse swaps, equity balance
holdings, first issuance guarantees, golden parachute rewards, instigation
perks, in-house bonuses, all based on cross-board mutual benefit printing of
paper sent to the banks at zero per cent interest and which the federal
government acquires at, likewise, no risk. We should care about this because –
hey! manufacturing has crossed the
ocean like rats from a burning bridge, or, just to mangle metaphors even more,
because the people expect coffee and sex – or failing that—food and entertainment for
their daily grind. How’m I doing so far, Jim?
LAIRER
Instapoll on my ipad says your lead has just dwindled from
50% of committed voters to 34% of voters who’ve been committed. Mr Bombney,
response?
BOMBNEY
Damn tootin’, Jim! I’ve moved up without even moving my
mouth! Need I say anything? OK, here goes. Our economy is based on value of
service for value of reception. Supply and demand, that is. The people supply
their labor and expertise, and we, all of us, are rewarded in the collective
pool. I – just to use my own contribution – set up a financial equity racket –
er, market – which people invest in since they have no clue what to do with
their hard-earned money, and who are worried about the future. I hire some
people to my project, who pay taxes and go to church, and they do my work. Then
the people, after the various marketing games, buy our products, in which they
assume all risk, and we make, on average, 42% of their rolled-over bottom line
on mark-ups, front- and back-end fees, administrative fees, hidden fees (I
gotta eat!) advertizing expenses, breakage rates, annual fees, and
volatility/adjustment fees, all at NO risk. Of course, the game has morphed into something even
more awesome these years since with our wealth, we can game the system even
more with the microsecond proprietary buys on sweeping trades all day long. This
adds to our bottom line and makes America stronger for what makes America
stronger – people who believe in the American dream and who go on to create and
develop small businesses just like ours. The economy is important because
without it, I wouldn’t have a chance to become president of the Unites States
since even I can't turn a dollar into a billion . So it's promises made for those wonderful donors. But you can't trump being the head bureaucrat while touting one's entrepreneurial boned-up feed days.
LAIRER
Next question. Mr Obummah, today is your anniversary. Any
message to newlyweds or to those looking to raise a family in these hard
economic times?
OBUMMAH
Abortions for everyone! But seriously, anyone who wants to
keep their kids, we need you. The Democrats need your future votes. Well,
that’s kinda silly, I guess. I can’t really speak to those people yet, and when
it’s possible, I’ll be dead or at least out of power. So who cares.
LAIRER
Mr Bombney, how do we reduce the deficit?
BOMBNEY
Smoke and mirrors, Jim. I will reduce it by increasing the
budget for the military. I’ll also slash services to the bone while reducing
the tax burden for businesses who’ll just pocket the money we give them since
confidence in the economy won’t perk up by my numbers I seem to have little
idea of where they come from. A trillion a year for the troops overseas is
about right. And that’s why we need to develop more oil and gas right here in
our backyard. Maybe there’ll be another Pennsylvania black gush, like in that
Beverley Hills pre-show. Always liked granny’s grittiness. That’s what America
is all about. Grannies making lye soap in the kitchen. Thrift, hard work and
inventiveness. That reminds me –
LAIRER
Sorry, Mr Bombney, but we must move on --
BOMBNEY
Not so fast, Jim. You know, I like you. But when elected,
I’ll fire Big Bird AND you. China will not finance PBS, even if it does
subsidize everything else about this country, including my paycheck. Our phony unemployment figures and job future, well – those federal reports
come in handy.
LAIRER
Mr President, anything to say?.
OBUMMAH
You know, I may not
have a teleprompter in front of me, so I’d just like to say, blah blah blah –
and blah blah. It’s cool to go off-topic and converse with the American people
in down home terms, unafraid of having that damn scroll get stuck mid-sentence
pitch on some godforsaken dump in Louisiana where the yokels with guns are a-teeming yet quiet, and there's that one nasty camera crew who catches the slip.
I’d reduce the deficit by continuing with the stagnant policies of big
government that have marked my tenure here so far. Tenure – now there’s a word
for you university types. When I moved up the ladder in Harvard, I got that
tenure shit down straight up. Mystery grades, and no one can vouch for me, but
those Chicaga connections. Man, every day was like Willie Dixon in one joint,
Muddy Waters in the next, and Otis Rush across the street. It’s who you know,
babe. I can organize that shit. And it’s my community. Where was I? Yeah,
tenure. Kids, don’t worry about those staggering university debts. Uncle Barry
gives you the out till you’re twenty-six. It’s called deferred gratification.
Er, make that impossible gratification. See, those jobs are just gonna get
farther into the rear view mirror. So your debt will continue to climb. Sorry
to burst your bubble, but it don’t matter since I don’t care about the second
term. This Jesus fawner can have my job. I can’t go out for a cigarette these
days without some image flak coming up to me and telling me the next line to
correct some other mistake I was supposed to have made. Hell with that shit,
man. He can have it in January. I’ll chill and resume my poetry career I
dropped out of in my freshman year. Obummahcare! Yeah, the insurance companies' dream. Students and patients. Etherized upon a table. Or some such.
LAIRER
Last question. Mr Bombney, how will you get people back to
work in this country?
BOMBNEY
The American people are vigorous and full of ideas. They
just need someone to convince them the entrepreneurial spirit won’t get crushed
by government oversight and negligence. Of course, I have no idea how that
inventiveness will be rewarded since the suburban build-out everything is
predicated upon in this country is now at an end. But me? It’s great being a
big part of the bureaucracy. I’m risk averse.
LAIRER
Thank you, gentlemen. And thank you, America, for listening,
and Denver University for providing the pretense of having this cloaked as an
intellectual discussion.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Response to Ross Leckie's Response of a Response to an Essay
Ross Leckie responded to Michael Lista's response to a republished essay by Jan Zwicky on negative reviewing. I've had my say a few posts back about Zwicky's misunderstanding of listening in that essay as it pertains to a so-called negative review, or to any review, for that matter. But it's interesting to investigate, at length, Leckie's own thoughts on this subject, the scary or pejorative "negative" term problematic since those opposed to negative reviewing can't or won't state the many definitions of this category that surely have to be explored before any kind of exhaustive debate can take place. (I'll touch on a few of those questions as I go along.)
After reading through Leckie's essay in its entirety the first thing one notices, by overview, is its common structural layout. First praise, then for the bulk of the essay, attack, finally wrapping things up with a gentle call for more of the good stuff. This is the passive-aggressive approach at its most effective if, by now, a bit obvious. The upshot, I suppose, is that negative reviewing (or more to the point here, criticizing the critics) is OK if a few bones are thrown to first entice the dog and a few pats are administered after the "loveable" pummeling. But I've always preferred arguments that are more transparent.
Why do I preface this piece with thoughts on tone? Because much of the opposition to so-called negative reviewing has nothing to do with content. Critics of the critics either can't attack the arguments point-for-point; they're under the assumption that a tone offensive to them somehow invalidates all points made, holus bolus; or they simply give up on thinking about the piece in question or even finishing it because it upsets them. Too harsh or inaccurate? Scan the comments streams under the various entries on this topic.
But any of these three responses assumes, firstly, that the reviewer is writing primarily for the author. The reviewer's first responsibility is to her- or himself, of course, to write a decent review. But beyond that, the responsibility is to the reader: to provide an entertaining consideration or fuller exploration of the book under study. The writer can't be responsible, ultimately, to the author because most authors are going to want the reviewer to share the same desire to understand, the same love bestowed on the time-saturated reading process, the same time-saturated considerations given to the content, including sussing out many references, buried forms, musical play, and cross-poem ambiguities. When it comes to the author, the reviewer can never win. And that's OK. We each have only one life to live, and the reviewer must move on, to many other books, and perhaps even to his or her own work. Imagine that!. The reviewer engages with the text with varying interest. If the poems tease, perhaps it's cruel for the reviewer to give up on them so easily. Many poems don't deserve any review because they're so generically bad that, indeed, silence, rather than dismissiveness or negativity, is the better option. But many poems tease and irk us in differing ways. Perhaps an idea intrigues, but fizzles out in bromides. Perhaps a form has a rich cadence but breaks down (without content parallels) into a monotonous mass. Perhaps the poem uses a philosophical preface to telegraph its message. There are a million ways one of these poems goes bad. And every good poem is good in its own way. So when one complains about a "negative" review, there is usually no such thing if by "negative" we are looking at one end of a lonely spectrum. Most so-called negative reviews are better classified as "mixed" reviews which, if the reviewer has any sense of proportion at all, are most of them. Sometimes , because of space considerations (especially in today's shrinking review space), and to get to an honest perspective of how one reviewer sees the book in question, negativity will have to be exclusive. Sometimes a book will get so many unjustified raves (in the reviewer's mind, of course), that a similarly hyperbolic corrective on the negative side of the ledger will be useful to shock complacent opinions. (Or one would hope, though granted, it often has no effect.). Sometimes a book actually offends the reviewer in some way, and a blistering response is the most honest one. (Offense seems to be a one-way street for Leckie, Zwicky, and many others.)
I've previously written more than enough about why "negative" (or more often negatively-slanted) reviews are necessary, so I won't go into any more detail here. And Mr. Lista does an admirable job in support of their worth, so I'll (finally) get to Leckie's response.
"There is no question that Michael Lista is a master of rhetoric, a skill that he has employed in his many reviews to provocative effect. I have learned a number of things about poetry from reading his reviews, but I inevitably find I learn most when he is enthusiastic. In his negative reviews his rhetoric gets the better of him and he doesn’t seem to be able to resist lighting the books on fire before throwing them in the trash bin". -- Leckie
This is a paragraph-long non sequitur. I'm not disputing Leckie's thoughts. He has a right to them, of course. But why does Leckie feel that Lista falls short in his "negative" reviewing while his "positive" reviews are more informative? This is, so far, an argument of tone only.
"What one finds, however, is that Vendler’s negative reviews are uninformative. It is in her enthusiasms that Vendler is at her best. If you wish to find a way into the difficulty that is John Ashbery, then there is no better place to begin than with Vendler’s review from The New Yorker. The same would be true of the very different kind of complexity presented by James Merrill. Start with Vendler. Her best reviews are reprinted in the books Part of Nature, Part of Us and The Music of What Happens"-- Leckie
Again, this is Leckie's view. We all have individual opinions (I would hope). I'm not familiar with Vendler's reviews of these two poets, but I am, for instance, familiar with many of the views of William Logan and Randall Jarrell, to pick two critics at random. I find Logan's praiseworthy pieces quite benign. Geoffrey Hill comes across as a master of form and seamlessly retrofitted arcane knowledge, his conscience and gravitas awe-inspiring. But quotations and a necessary (especially for Hill) historical (world and poetry) arc is either negligent in its play or poorly represented. Logan is the true hatchet man: much more enlightening and engaging when dealing with someone whose poems he finds wanting. (Even here, Logan is often partially positive, so again the reminder that the truly awful or nondescript is unworthy of comment.) And Jarrell wrote equally well of the work of poets he thought good, bad, or indifferent. And again, my thoughts about these critics are no better, worse, or relevant than those of Leckie's. My point is that anyone can use their personal experience as representative of either view (or other views altogether). Because Leckie says something doesn't, in itself, make it so for every reviewer.
"I could talk extensively about rhetoric as it is employed in Lista’s response to Zwicky’s essay on reviewing, from the false bravado of “Cue the violins, folks” to the rather snide “How, Jan, did he ever go on?” He pretends that Zwicky really does believe that the critics killed Keats, when it is obvious to anyone reading Zwicky’s essay that her citation of Byron is a rhetorical strategy of her own. This pretense, however, allows the definitive dismissal, nicely shaped within parentheses: “(Keats died of an infection of the tubercle bacillus, TB).” Did you know that TB stands for “tubercle bacillus?”" -- Leckie
If Zwicky uses Byron's citation as a rhetorical strategy, it failed. Zwicky makes the point again in the second paragraph of her essay which sidles up to "given the potential seriousness of the consequences for the work’s creator, we also have a duty to be pretty sure we’re right". Yes, Keats didn't die outright of a shattered sensibility, but if one is going to trade in such inflammatory and gross metaphors, it would be resposible to draw a clear distinction between history and the speculative fate of all artists on the receiving end of a barb. Zwicky wants it both ways, and it was entirely appropriate (and not at all a cheap rhetorical ploy) for Lista to point out the distinction. And speaking of "rhetorical ploys", it's becoming clear that Leckie is irritated by rhetoric in general, positing a false value slide between reason and rhetorical unsubstance. More on this later.
"Zwicky believes that a reviewer should only speak to his or her enthusiasms and remain silent on books she or he dislikes. Lista finds it unethical for writers not to speak their minds about each other’s work, regardless of how much love or hate they might feel for it. As he says, “Call me old-fashioned, but I think the truth sounds beautiful, and there’s an intrinsic value in discovering what writers think of each other’s work.” Well, it’s a pretty sentiment to be sure, fit, perhaps, to be carved on a Grecian urn." -- Leckie
Leckie earlier scolded Lista for Lista's scolding "How, Jan, did he ever go on?". The last sentence quoted above shows Leckie himself is no slouch when it comes to snide remarks. Wose, though, is that Leckie, in that oh-so-common Canadian passive-aggressive manner, imputes to Lista the reviewer's supposed desire that his "truth sounds beautiful" assertion will not only stand the test of time, but rival Keats' famous urn-ending in profundity. More on this under the next paragraph
"What feminists have known for a long time, however, is that it is important to know whom it is who is proclaiming the truth, within what ideologies the truth has been shaped, and from what platform that truth is being spoken. Ah, if we only had world enough and time, we could create a utopian twitter feed where we would all have equal time to say what we truly think of each other’s writing." -- Leckie
So much to discuss here, but for reasons of time constraints (hey, not so different from the limitations of reviewers who make only passing investigations of several poems in an 80 poem book!) I'll keep my comments brief.
Leckie's high-toned say-nothingism above is laughably overstating Lista's meaning. Lista's "truth" is not at all grandiose. He simply means it in the manner of anyone who reads a book, considers its contents, and then sets out to write about what they think of it. "His" truth, in other words, which is all the truth we can ever supply. To bring in feminists out of left field to make an argument based on a faulty premise is, itself, quite curious. Feminists themselves don't have specific ideological agendas? And why would limitless time on a twitter feed change the way people feel about being honest with the work of poets they've read? The issue has nothing to do with time, and everything to do with ... well, we'll wait for that a few paragraphs down.
"The reviewer of poetry, however, is taking up the extremely limited public space given to poetry reviews, and, therefore, has an ethical responsibility. I’m not sure from his commentary whether Lista appreciates that the ethics of reviewing is about choice. Remembering that Lista’s commentary originates as a response to the Canadian Women in the Literary Arts new website, it is crucial to note that if men choose to review predominantly male authors, then that is an ethical choice. Perhaps more subtly, however, if one chooses to trash a book, then that is a choice to give the author of that book that form of verbal abuse, and it is a choice to allow books truly deserving of praise to languish without review." -- Leckie
Remember that I said Leckie's essay was cleverly if generically structured. We've gone from a Marcus Aurelius "Brutus [Lista] is an honourable man" to a rather alarming "if one chooses to trash a book" and " a form of verbal abuse". But then, unlike the effective skill and desire of the demagogue, the paragraph-closing pullback is upcoming. We can't have the "rhetoric" of mobs and entrenched interests (as if they existed in some sci-fi zombie movie, just waiting to be activated). Sticking with the above quoted paragraph, though, we see that the somber thrust continues. "The reviewer of poetry ... has an ethical responsibility." Again, the resposibility is to be true to one's own opinion of a work he or she has engaged with, and again, engaged with in a limited time next to all the other things a reviewer must do in her or his daily life. This is not to let the reviewer off the hook. A book of poetry, if one is to pronounce upon it publically, should be read several times over, at least, all in attentive and open interest. Then, stray thoughts, cohering or not, should be entertained over a period of time. Further re-reading should give some shape to one's thoughts. An argument about specific lines or entire poems should then begin to form. And eventually, a structured overview should begin to take shape. After an initial write, opinions should be wrestled with -- a devil's advocate role, or at least an emotional counterweight should be entertained. A re-write may be in order. And eventually, the harder and often more drab process of rewriting for form's sake itself should be given heed. Now all this is done, mind you, without there being any guarantee that the reviewer will like the work. If you think it's easy, even preferable, that a reviewer who has put so much work and thought into a book's response (and all books should be given serious time and thought if they're up for review -- it's no way of deciding to dislike a work by a short, dismissive, silent refusal to go ahead with it) send it back to the editor with a "thanks, but no thanks" note, it straps the editor and publisher, but it also sets up a particularly nasty habit whereby a reviewer will only take on a book he or she is already familiar with ( to sidestep the nasty business of dirtying one's hands and reputation with a negative review). So much for going into the great beyond of surprising discovery, negative but also positive.
Leckie then performs the agreeable professor's head nod to lecture (again, so gently, so repectfully) about "choice". But when one's modus operandi, in the Zwicky primer on reviewing, is to keep quiet on not only bad books, but on books which (far more often than the former) engender a mixed response, this is no choice at all for the reader of the review. It's a self-censoring editorial policy which does no one any good, not the poet herself who may not know what readers (as reviewers) think about her work, not the reader who gets a stilted impression of the general thrust and quality of Canadian poetry, and not the reviewer who must always couch even the mildest of raspberries in silver linings and white lies. And not least of all, the general reader from another country who may be mystified by all the congratulatory back-and-forth between the covers of journals, whatever their circulation.
If "men choose to review predominantly male authors" it is not an ethical choice, it's an aesthetic one. It's no secret, for example, that I've reviewed more male than female poets. ("Ah, but that's only in a blog, that doesn't count.") Sure, but as a reviewer for other publications as well, I've had assignments given to me in addition to others where I've been able to choose the book or books. It doesn't matter to me because I've discovered quite a few excellent female poets I'd otherwise may never have stumbled upon, (and male poets, too, of course), but I approach a journal review from a position of unknowing, not preference (unless there's something specific I really want to pick up). I find male poets, in general, speak to me more intimately than do female poets. Others, and Lista has stated his preference for female poets, feel differently, and that's great. Variety, spice, etc. But here's the point in this boring gender-bitching-fest: every reviewer, and certainly every reader and poet-reader, has prefrences. Biases. Emotional reactions. There's nothing wrong with that. And that's gonna come out in our reviews. We're not balanced automatons devoid of personality, devoid of tics and unpleasantness and unfair reactions. That they be kept in context is the best way to approach the fact of the intrinsically imperfect reviewer, imperfect human. We're not passing infinite tests on our impartiality as selected jurors in a notorious multiple-murder trial. But let's reserve where this leads to in his next two paragraphs.
"Well, what truth does Lista’s commentary serve? For one, it serves the rhetoric of the gadfly (I recommend bug repellent, as gadflies have been thick on the ground the last few years). If we, he suggests, don’t say what we really think of each other’s poetry, then the result will be “flat, uninspired prose” and “swollen reputations left to inflate and float away.” " -- Leckie
More snide remarks in the passive, deflecting voice. Why no names? How does a ghost answer? A gadfly, of course, is an irritating fly, fattening itself on the original labour -- rather, very existence -- of other, more substantial, creatures. Parasites. Pests. What was that about "respect" and not attacking again? Or are we in a different court where one rule applies to poets and another one to reviewers? (Those curious may want to read or re-read Lista's accurate assessment of Zwicky's ad hominems in her response to Lista. The latter's attacks, however harsh the tone of his original piece, nevertheless stayed above the belt and focussed on her ideas.)
"Is this the case? Perhaps at times it has been. It can be rather cozy having friends reviewing each other’s work. But what lies in other direction? I fear it to be encampments, entrenchments, redoubts and all the fun stuff of the culture wars. Rhetoric piled on rhetoric. Now that truly does lead to shrill, uninspired prose. I couldn’t agree more with Lista when he says, “The purpose of a review, good or bad, is to begin a conversation, not to end it.” If I may be permitted a small piece of rhetorical theatrics. Really, Michael? Your review of, let’s say, Tim Lilburn’s Assiniboia is to start a conversation?" -- Leckie
Leckie's answer to his own question above is pathetic in its naivety or, more likely, disingenuousness. Perhaps, and at times? Does it really need to be outlined yet again all the ways in which reviewers shy away from even slightly ho-hum responses in reviews, having to do with the fact that a great many are players in a game where grants, awards, exposure to one's own work through publishing and readings, committee seats, and the general communal good vibes that all inoffensive (honest?) response engenders? That Leckie, in his role of editor at one of the major poetry (and prose) journals in Canada, has not himself been the beneficiary of those who just might have a small incentive not to rock the boat when declaiming on his own poetry and on the efforts of those on the Fiddlehead's roster? If all "negative" reviews are abolished, is there perhaps too much space to fill each quarterly edition with raves? And what happens to those poets who are inevitably ignored because they couldn't pass the test of an honest, positive appraisal? How long does silence go on, and how can a beginning poet hope to improve their craft and vision (almost always a major necessity in a relative neophyte) if they're met with indifference and, if they're in on the omission, an effective blackballing?
Why does there have to be an"other direction"? "I fear it to be encampments .. culture wars." Well, then, it is so. Perhaps what we should fear is the status quo, where there is no incentive for broad-spectrum evaluative reviewing.
And yes, Lista's review of Lilburn's latest was not only a good attempt at a conversation starter, it succeeded. One could chalk this up to the NaPo's greater audience compared to what exists for journals across the land, but access isn't the entire story. A boring, say nothing review won't start a fire even in a bigger auditorium. Or perhaps I should "tone down" the rhetoric. There's always that available mob, willing to throw rocks, all without a differentiated thought in their heads, just waiting for a spark.
Most book reviews, because they're not much more than descriptive filler and mild or wild pro hominem adverts, start nothing because they put the reader to sleep. Provocation is not the only way to get a conversation going, of course. Unusual associations the reviewer makes which are nevertheless appropriate, career contextual placement, Christ, just the writing alone, is often enough to get people to notice a book and say a few words about it to others.
"I know all language is rhetoric and that I have deployed a variety of stratagems in my own commentary. I also realize that it is my temperament to prefer informative and analytic reviews to scorched earth polemics. I will still admire Michael Lista when he writes a positive review. When he writes one such as the one of Bruce Taylor, he is generous, intelligent, thoughtful, insightful, and unabashedly joyous. And we need more of that in our poetry reviews" -- Leckie
After all the put-downs regarding rhetorical strategies, Leckie admits to his own. I'm confused. Rhetoric is OK only if I'm doing it? Are we back to the two sets of rules again? I own my own rhetoric. Rhetoric has a long, proud history, in every generation, and across epochs, cultures, subjects, styles, and public demonstrations. It's endlessly creative and, perhaps what irks me the most in this essay's suspicion and even denunciation of it, confident about its reception. It's the "logicians only" camp (everyone belongs to camps, some are just afraid of admitting to one or more) who often and ironically call to their own fallacies and misrepresentations, hypocrisies and "moral" high ground, strictures and refusal to acknowledge rhetoric in all its disarray and glory. And all rhetoric isn't "scorched earth polemics".
Leckie and Zwicky prefer "positive" reviews only. That's their right. As long as they keep it within their own power structures, no problem.
After reading through Leckie's essay in its entirety the first thing one notices, by overview, is its common structural layout. First praise, then for the bulk of the essay, attack, finally wrapping things up with a gentle call for more of the good stuff. This is the passive-aggressive approach at its most effective if, by now, a bit obvious. The upshot, I suppose, is that negative reviewing (or more to the point here, criticizing the critics) is OK if a few bones are thrown to first entice the dog and a few pats are administered after the "loveable" pummeling. But I've always preferred arguments that are more transparent.
Why do I preface this piece with thoughts on tone? Because much of the opposition to so-called negative reviewing has nothing to do with content. Critics of the critics either can't attack the arguments point-for-point; they're under the assumption that a tone offensive to them somehow invalidates all points made, holus bolus; or they simply give up on thinking about the piece in question or even finishing it because it upsets them. Too harsh or inaccurate? Scan the comments streams under the various entries on this topic.
But any of these three responses assumes, firstly, that the reviewer is writing primarily for the author. The reviewer's first responsibility is to her- or himself, of course, to write a decent review. But beyond that, the responsibility is to the reader: to provide an entertaining consideration or fuller exploration of the book under study. The writer can't be responsible, ultimately, to the author because most authors are going to want the reviewer to share the same desire to understand, the same love bestowed on the time-saturated reading process, the same time-saturated considerations given to the content, including sussing out many references, buried forms, musical play, and cross-poem ambiguities. When it comes to the author, the reviewer can never win. And that's OK. We each have only one life to live, and the reviewer must move on, to many other books, and perhaps even to his or her own work. Imagine that!. The reviewer engages with the text with varying interest. If the poems tease, perhaps it's cruel for the reviewer to give up on them so easily. Many poems don't deserve any review because they're so generically bad that, indeed, silence, rather than dismissiveness or negativity, is the better option. But many poems tease and irk us in differing ways. Perhaps an idea intrigues, but fizzles out in bromides. Perhaps a form has a rich cadence but breaks down (without content parallels) into a monotonous mass. Perhaps the poem uses a philosophical preface to telegraph its message. There are a million ways one of these poems goes bad. And every good poem is good in its own way. So when one complains about a "negative" review, there is usually no such thing if by "negative" we are looking at one end of a lonely spectrum. Most so-called negative reviews are better classified as "mixed" reviews which, if the reviewer has any sense of proportion at all, are most of them. Sometimes , because of space considerations (especially in today's shrinking review space), and to get to an honest perspective of how one reviewer sees the book in question, negativity will have to be exclusive. Sometimes a book will get so many unjustified raves (in the reviewer's mind, of course), that a similarly hyperbolic corrective on the negative side of the ledger will be useful to shock complacent opinions. (Or one would hope, though granted, it often has no effect.). Sometimes a book actually offends the reviewer in some way, and a blistering response is the most honest one. (Offense seems to be a one-way street for Leckie, Zwicky, and many others.)
I've previously written more than enough about why "negative" (or more often negatively-slanted) reviews are necessary, so I won't go into any more detail here. And Mr. Lista does an admirable job in support of their worth, so I'll (finally) get to Leckie's response.
"There is no question that Michael Lista is a master of rhetoric, a skill that he has employed in his many reviews to provocative effect. I have learned a number of things about poetry from reading his reviews, but I inevitably find I learn most when he is enthusiastic. In his negative reviews his rhetoric gets the better of him and he doesn’t seem to be able to resist lighting the books on fire before throwing them in the trash bin". -- Leckie
This is a paragraph-long non sequitur. I'm not disputing Leckie's thoughts. He has a right to them, of course. But why does Leckie feel that Lista falls short in his "negative" reviewing while his "positive" reviews are more informative? This is, so far, an argument of tone only.
"What one finds, however, is that Vendler’s negative reviews are uninformative. It is in her enthusiasms that Vendler is at her best. If you wish to find a way into the difficulty that is John Ashbery, then there is no better place to begin than with Vendler’s review from The New Yorker. The same would be true of the very different kind of complexity presented by James Merrill. Start with Vendler. Her best reviews are reprinted in the books Part of Nature, Part of Us and The Music of What Happens"-- Leckie
Again, this is Leckie's view. We all have individual opinions (I would hope). I'm not familiar with Vendler's reviews of these two poets, but I am, for instance, familiar with many of the views of William Logan and Randall Jarrell, to pick two critics at random. I find Logan's praiseworthy pieces quite benign. Geoffrey Hill comes across as a master of form and seamlessly retrofitted arcane knowledge, his conscience and gravitas awe-inspiring. But quotations and a necessary (especially for Hill) historical (world and poetry) arc is either negligent in its play or poorly represented. Logan is the true hatchet man: much more enlightening and engaging when dealing with someone whose poems he finds wanting. (Even here, Logan is often partially positive, so again the reminder that the truly awful or nondescript is unworthy of comment.) And Jarrell wrote equally well of the work of poets he thought good, bad, or indifferent. And again, my thoughts about these critics are no better, worse, or relevant than those of Leckie's. My point is that anyone can use their personal experience as representative of either view (or other views altogether). Because Leckie says something doesn't, in itself, make it so for every reviewer.
"I could talk extensively about rhetoric as it is employed in Lista’s response to Zwicky’s essay on reviewing, from the false bravado of “Cue the violins, folks” to the rather snide “How, Jan, did he ever go on?” He pretends that Zwicky really does believe that the critics killed Keats, when it is obvious to anyone reading Zwicky’s essay that her citation of Byron is a rhetorical strategy of her own. This pretense, however, allows the definitive dismissal, nicely shaped within parentheses: “(Keats died of an infection of the tubercle bacillus, TB).” Did you know that TB stands for “tubercle bacillus?”" -- Leckie
If Zwicky uses Byron's citation as a rhetorical strategy, it failed. Zwicky makes the point again in the second paragraph of her essay which sidles up to "given the potential seriousness of the consequences for the work’s creator, we also have a duty to be pretty sure we’re right". Yes, Keats didn't die outright of a shattered sensibility, but if one is going to trade in such inflammatory and gross metaphors, it would be resposible to draw a clear distinction between history and the speculative fate of all artists on the receiving end of a barb. Zwicky wants it both ways, and it was entirely appropriate (and not at all a cheap rhetorical ploy) for Lista to point out the distinction. And speaking of "rhetorical ploys", it's becoming clear that Leckie is irritated by rhetoric in general, positing a false value slide between reason and rhetorical unsubstance. More on this later.
"Zwicky believes that a reviewer should only speak to his or her enthusiasms and remain silent on books she or he dislikes. Lista finds it unethical for writers not to speak their minds about each other’s work, regardless of how much love or hate they might feel for it. As he says, “Call me old-fashioned, but I think the truth sounds beautiful, and there’s an intrinsic value in discovering what writers think of each other’s work.” Well, it’s a pretty sentiment to be sure, fit, perhaps, to be carved on a Grecian urn." -- Leckie
Leckie earlier scolded Lista for Lista's scolding "How, Jan, did he ever go on?". The last sentence quoted above shows Leckie himself is no slouch when it comes to snide remarks. Wose, though, is that Leckie, in that oh-so-common Canadian passive-aggressive manner, imputes to Lista the reviewer's supposed desire that his "truth sounds beautiful" assertion will not only stand the test of time, but rival Keats' famous urn-ending in profundity. More on this under the next paragraph
"What feminists have known for a long time, however, is that it is important to know whom it is who is proclaiming the truth, within what ideologies the truth has been shaped, and from what platform that truth is being spoken. Ah, if we only had world enough and time, we could create a utopian twitter feed where we would all have equal time to say what we truly think of each other’s writing." -- Leckie
So much to discuss here, but for reasons of time constraints (hey, not so different from the limitations of reviewers who make only passing investigations of several poems in an 80 poem book!) I'll keep my comments brief.
Leckie's high-toned say-nothingism above is laughably overstating Lista's meaning. Lista's "truth" is not at all grandiose. He simply means it in the manner of anyone who reads a book, considers its contents, and then sets out to write about what they think of it. "His" truth, in other words, which is all the truth we can ever supply. To bring in feminists out of left field to make an argument based on a faulty premise is, itself, quite curious. Feminists themselves don't have specific ideological agendas? And why would limitless time on a twitter feed change the way people feel about being honest with the work of poets they've read? The issue has nothing to do with time, and everything to do with ... well, we'll wait for that a few paragraphs down.
"The reviewer of poetry, however, is taking up the extremely limited public space given to poetry reviews, and, therefore, has an ethical responsibility. I’m not sure from his commentary whether Lista appreciates that the ethics of reviewing is about choice. Remembering that Lista’s commentary originates as a response to the Canadian Women in the Literary Arts new website, it is crucial to note that if men choose to review predominantly male authors, then that is an ethical choice. Perhaps more subtly, however, if one chooses to trash a book, then that is a choice to give the author of that book that form of verbal abuse, and it is a choice to allow books truly deserving of praise to languish without review." -- Leckie
Remember that I said Leckie's essay was cleverly if generically structured. We've gone from a Marcus Aurelius "Brutus [Lista] is an honourable man" to a rather alarming "if one chooses to trash a book" and " a form of verbal abuse". But then, unlike the effective skill and desire of the demagogue, the paragraph-closing pullback is upcoming. We can't have the "rhetoric" of mobs and entrenched interests (as if they existed in some sci-fi zombie movie, just waiting to be activated). Sticking with the above quoted paragraph, though, we see that the somber thrust continues. "The reviewer of poetry ... has an ethical responsibility." Again, the resposibility is to be true to one's own opinion of a work he or she has engaged with, and again, engaged with in a limited time next to all the other things a reviewer must do in her or his daily life. This is not to let the reviewer off the hook. A book of poetry, if one is to pronounce upon it publically, should be read several times over, at least, all in attentive and open interest. Then, stray thoughts, cohering or not, should be entertained over a period of time. Further re-reading should give some shape to one's thoughts. An argument about specific lines or entire poems should then begin to form. And eventually, a structured overview should begin to take shape. After an initial write, opinions should be wrestled with -- a devil's advocate role, or at least an emotional counterweight should be entertained. A re-write may be in order. And eventually, the harder and often more drab process of rewriting for form's sake itself should be given heed. Now all this is done, mind you, without there being any guarantee that the reviewer will like the work. If you think it's easy, even preferable, that a reviewer who has put so much work and thought into a book's response (and all books should be given serious time and thought if they're up for review -- it's no way of deciding to dislike a work by a short, dismissive, silent refusal to go ahead with it) send it back to the editor with a "thanks, but no thanks" note, it straps the editor and publisher, but it also sets up a particularly nasty habit whereby a reviewer will only take on a book he or she is already familiar with ( to sidestep the nasty business of dirtying one's hands and reputation with a negative review). So much for going into the great beyond of surprising discovery, negative but also positive.
Leckie then performs the agreeable professor's head nod to lecture (again, so gently, so repectfully) about "choice". But when one's modus operandi, in the Zwicky primer on reviewing, is to keep quiet on not only bad books, but on books which (far more often than the former) engender a mixed response, this is no choice at all for the reader of the review. It's a self-censoring editorial policy which does no one any good, not the poet herself who may not know what readers (as reviewers) think about her work, not the reader who gets a stilted impression of the general thrust and quality of Canadian poetry, and not the reviewer who must always couch even the mildest of raspberries in silver linings and white lies. And not least of all, the general reader from another country who may be mystified by all the congratulatory back-and-forth between the covers of journals, whatever their circulation.
If "men choose to review predominantly male authors" it is not an ethical choice, it's an aesthetic one. It's no secret, for example, that I've reviewed more male than female poets. ("Ah, but that's only in a blog, that doesn't count.") Sure, but as a reviewer for other publications as well, I've had assignments given to me in addition to others where I've been able to choose the book or books. It doesn't matter to me because I've discovered quite a few excellent female poets I'd otherwise may never have stumbled upon, (and male poets, too, of course), but I approach a journal review from a position of unknowing, not preference (unless there's something specific I really want to pick up). I find male poets, in general, speak to me more intimately than do female poets. Others, and Lista has stated his preference for female poets, feel differently, and that's great. Variety, spice, etc. But here's the point in this boring gender-bitching-fest: every reviewer, and certainly every reader and poet-reader, has prefrences. Biases. Emotional reactions. There's nothing wrong with that. And that's gonna come out in our reviews. We're not balanced automatons devoid of personality, devoid of tics and unpleasantness and unfair reactions. That they be kept in context is the best way to approach the fact of the intrinsically imperfect reviewer, imperfect human. We're not passing infinite tests on our impartiality as selected jurors in a notorious multiple-murder trial. But let's reserve where this leads to in his next two paragraphs.
"Well, what truth does Lista’s commentary serve? For one, it serves the rhetoric of the gadfly (I recommend bug repellent, as gadflies have been thick on the ground the last few years). If we, he suggests, don’t say what we really think of each other’s poetry, then the result will be “flat, uninspired prose” and “swollen reputations left to inflate and float away.” " -- Leckie
More snide remarks in the passive, deflecting voice. Why no names? How does a ghost answer? A gadfly, of course, is an irritating fly, fattening itself on the original labour -- rather, very existence -- of other, more substantial, creatures. Parasites. Pests. What was that about "respect" and not attacking again? Or are we in a different court where one rule applies to poets and another one to reviewers? (Those curious may want to read or re-read Lista's accurate assessment of Zwicky's ad hominems in her response to Lista. The latter's attacks, however harsh the tone of his original piece, nevertheless stayed above the belt and focussed on her ideas.)
"Is this the case? Perhaps at times it has been. It can be rather cozy having friends reviewing each other’s work. But what lies in other direction? I fear it to be encampments, entrenchments, redoubts and all the fun stuff of the culture wars. Rhetoric piled on rhetoric. Now that truly does lead to shrill, uninspired prose. I couldn’t agree more with Lista when he says, “The purpose of a review, good or bad, is to begin a conversation, not to end it.” If I may be permitted a small piece of rhetorical theatrics. Really, Michael? Your review of, let’s say, Tim Lilburn’s Assiniboia is to start a conversation?" -- Leckie
Leckie's answer to his own question above is pathetic in its naivety or, more likely, disingenuousness. Perhaps, and at times? Does it really need to be outlined yet again all the ways in which reviewers shy away from even slightly ho-hum responses in reviews, having to do with the fact that a great many are players in a game where grants, awards, exposure to one's own work through publishing and readings, committee seats, and the general communal good vibes that all inoffensive (honest?) response engenders? That Leckie, in his role of editor at one of the major poetry (and prose) journals in Canada, has not himself been the beneficiary of those who just might have a small incentive not to rock the boat when declaiming on his own poetry and on the efforts of those on the Fiddlehead's roster? If all "negative" reviews are abolished, is there perhaps too much space to fill each quarterly edition with raves? And what happens to those poets who are inevitably ignored because they couldn't pass the test of an honest, positive appraisal? How long does silence go on, and how can a beginning poet hope to improve their craft and vision (almost always a major necessity in a relative neophyte) if they're met with indifference and, if they're in on the omission, an effective blackballing?
Why does there have to be an"other direction"? "I fear it to be encampments .. culture wars." Well, then, it is so. Perhaps what we should fear is the status quo, where there is no incentive for broad-spectrum evaluative reviewing.
And yes, Lista's review of Lilburn's latest was not only a good attempt at a conversation starter, it succeeded. One could chalk this up to the NaPo's greater audience compared to what exists for journals across the land, but access isn't the entire story. A boring, say nothing review won't start a fire even in a bigger auditorium. Or perhaps I should "tone down" the rhetoric. There's always that available mob, willing to throw rocks, all without a differentiated thought in their heads, just waiting for a spark.
Most book reviews, because they're not much more than descriptive filler and mild or wild pro hominem adverts, start nothing because they put the reader to sleep. Provocation is not the only way to get a conversation going, of course. Unusual associations the reviewer makes which are nevertheless appropriate, career contextual placement, Christ, just the writing alone, is often enough to get people to notice a book and say a few words about it to others.
"I know all language is rhetoric and that I have deployed a variety of stratagems in my own commentary. I also realize that it is my temperament to prefer informative and analytic reviews to scorched earth polemics. I will still admire Michael Lista when he writes a positive review. When he writes one such as the one of Bruce Taylor, he is generous, intelligent, thoughtful, insightful, and unabashedly joyous. And we need more of that in our poetry reviews" -- Leckie
After all the put-downs regarding rhetorical strategies, Leckie admits to his own. I'm confused. Rhetoric is OK only if I'm doing it? Are we back to the two sets of rules again? I own my own rhetoric. Rhetoric has a long, proud history, in every generation, and across epochs, cultures, subjects, styles, and public demonstrations. It's endlessly creative and, perhaps what irks me the most in this essay's suspicion and even denunciation of it, confident about its reception. It's the "logicians only" camp (everyone belongs to camps, some are just afraid of admitting to one or more) who often and ironically call to their own fallacies and misrepresentations, hypocrisies and "moral" high ground, strictures and refusal to acknowledge rhetoric in all its disarray and glory. And all rhetoric isn't "scorched earth polemics".
Leckie and Zwicky prefer "positive" reviews only. That's their right. As long as they keep it within their own power structures, no problem.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Brian Fawcett, Revisited
Shortly after opening this blog, I began a series of responses to Brian Fawcett's essay, "The Tides Are Caused By The Moon's Gravity", the latter running in the online dooneyscafe. I've just reread those responses and though I'm still foursquare with everything I posited in that fractured screen reaction, I've come to appreciate (much more) the tone, if not the beliefs, of many of Fawcett's opinions on the current state of poetry (the last four words intoned over thunder rolls, followed by haunting retreating winds).
The personal? Never have, and never will have, a problem with that focus in verse if it's done with universal echoes and affecting language, rhythm and syntax. But where once (and for decades) I only became bored with lines of generic nature brooding, of stunted scope, of insularity, of slight content or jocose cultural ephemera, I've increasingly become irritated, even at times angered by it. And it's not just because it's irrelevant, but because of what it means in relation (as one example) to the problems Fawcett talks about in the below linked essay, also from dooneyscafe.
http://www.dooneyscafe.com/archives/3078
in which he unrolls a mini-history of poetry action and influence in Prince George, BC, which is then used as contrast to the current strain of postcolonial jargon and political mischief. It's a terrific essay (though riddled with typos, repetitions, misplaced commas, word deletions, and other verbal and grammatical infelicities -- so much for lambasting unedited bloggers, in another recent essay there, and tooting the home team's editing protocol and skills) . Though the set-up is a trifle romanticized (but hey, who am I to argue, I wasn't there), Fawcett's current views of Rob Budde's (and others') power-push at UNBC, with some frightening foreshadowing details, are right on the mark.
The only thing I'd like to add here takes off from this Fawcett quote:
"Everyone with a non-conforming opinion will sooner or later be accused of “hurtful bullying” and placed before a tribunal. How Bolshevik!
....Absurd as it sounds, this sort of thing, along with an apparently irresistible urge to supervise the language, thought and actions of those around them appears to be normal practice for the Bolshevik side of the poetry war, as is boycotting any poetry reading—or person—they think might have the potential to cause harm and to misrepresent. And if this degree of intellectual fundamentalism is sweeping the Western world, as it seems to be doing, most of our democratic institutions are in jeopardy, not just our artistic freedom. Though I confess to having had a lot of fun in this essay making merry with the absurdities of the situation, I don’t think what these people are doing is ultimately very funny. It scares the hell out of me."-- Fawcett
Elsewhere, Fawcett says that these ideologues are fighting the good fight, and that they mean no intentional harm. But in light of specific events and alliances (too detailed and numerous to go into here) in the U.S. since the early 70s, and more recently in Canada, there is nothing naive or play-as-you-go about university politics in the postcolonial racket. Budde came from the U.S. And the rampant takeover in liberal arts programs in the majority of universities by ideologues circumventing intellectual investigation of factual data (abetted, in many cases, by the complementary faddishness of poststructuralism) has been thorougly documented by many writers, David Horowitz being one of the most prominent. Perhaps the reason Fawcett seems innocent of this record is that Horowitz and other brave authors and speakers detailing this unpleasant reality belong to the Conservative wing of the academies, and it's hard for some of those fighting to keep intellectual rights -- entrenched rights as the major pillar of what defines universities-- enshrined when those on the defensive are from a political affiliation contrary to their own.
For those who say that postcolonialism, or the "sexism" of Purdy, are one thing, political parties another, take a peek at Budde's propaganda masking as poetry in Declining America, and note the references to corrupt Floridian politics, and so on and so on. Cultural bullying is terrifying, but make no mistake that a specific political agenda is also behind the curtain. Yep, the Bolshevik card may be alarmist, and on one level an insult to the memories of those living through the 20s, 30s, and 40s Soviet nightmares. But every giant leap starts with a small step.
Speaking of right-wing defensiveness, our close-to-home BC grown Human "Rights" Tribunal has had its own recent humourous-if-it-weren't so-infuriating brush with "correct" thinking. And anyone, by now, who doesn't know what I'm referring to should be ashamed, the same as those poetlings who continue to describe their tender feelings in ten skinny lines when chancing upon dead robins on the side of the highway, all while consciously gaining favours by avoiding politically incorrect language and attitudes.Unless, of course, mourning dead robins is really your thing, In that case, carry on. I sure wouldn't want to, you know, offend any budding King of the proles.
"
The personal? Never have, and never will have, a problem with that focus in verse if it's done with universal echoes and affecting language, rhythm and syntax. But where once (and for decades) I only became bored with lines of generic nature brooding, of stunted scope, of insularity, of slight content or jocose cultural ephemera, I've increasingly become irritated, even at times angered by it. And it's not just because it's irrelevant, but because of what it means in relation (as one example) to the problems Fawcett talks about in the below linked essay, also from dooneyscafe.
http://www.dooneyscafe.com/archives/3078
in which he unrolls a mini-history of poetry action and influence in Prince George, BC, which is then used as contrast to the current strain of postcolonial jargon and political mischief. It's a terrific essay (though riddled with typos, repetitions, misplaced commas, word deletions, and other verbal and grammatical infelicities -- so much for lambasting unedited bloggers, in another recent essay there, and tooting the home team's editing protocol and skills) . Though the set-up is a trifle romanticized (but hey, who am I to argue, I wasn't there), Fawcett's current views of Rob Budde's (and others') power-push at UNBC, with some frightening foreshadowing details, are right on the mark.
The only thing I'd like to add here takes off from this Fawcett quote:
"Everyone with a non-conforming opinion will sooner or later be accused of “hurtful bullying” and placed before a tribunal. How Bolshevik!
....Absurd as it sounds, this sort of thing, along with an apparently irresistible urge to supervise the language, thought and actions of those around them appears to be normal practice for the Bolshevik side of the poetry war, as is boycotting any poetry reading—or person—they think might have the potential to cause harm and to misrepresent. And if this degree of intellectual fundamentalism is sweeping the Western world, as it seems to be doing, most of our democratic institutions are in jeopardy, not just our artistic freedom. Though I confess to having had a lot of fun in this essay making merry with the absurdities of the situation, I don’t think what these people are doing is ultimately very funny. It scares the hell out of me."-- Fawcett
Elsewhere, Fawcett says that these ideologues are fighting the good fight, and that they mean no intentional harm. But in light of specific events and alliances (too detailed and numerous to go into here) in the U.S. since the early 70s, and more recently in Canada, there is nothing naive or play-as-you-go about university politics in the postcolonial racket. Budde came from the U.S. And the rampant takeover in liberal arts programs in the majority of universities by ideologues circumventing intellectual investigation of factual data (abetted, in many cases, by the complementary faddishness of poststructuralism) has been thorougly documented by many writers, David Horowitz being one of the most prominent. Perhaps the reason Fawcett seems innocent of this record is that Horowitz and other brave authors and speakers detailing this unpleasant reality belong to the Conservative wing of the academies, and it's hard for some of those fighting to keep intellectual rights -- entrenched rights as the major pillar of what defines universities-- enshrined when those on the defensive are from a political affiliation contrary to their own.
For those who say that postcolonialism, or the "sexism" of Purdy, are one thing, political parties another, take a peek at Budde's propaganda masking as poetry in Declining America, and note the references to corrupt Floridian politics, and so on and so on. Cultural bullying is terrifying, but make no mistake that a specific political agenda is also behind the curtain. Yep, the Bolshevik card may be alarmist, and on one level an insult to the memories of those living through the 20s, 30s, and 40s Soviet nightmares. But every giant leap starts with a small step.
Speaking of right-wing defensiveness, our close-to-home BC grown Human "Rights" Tribunal has had its own recent humourous-if-it-weren't so-infuriating brush with "correct" thinking. And anyone, by now, who doesn't know what I'm referring to should be ashamed, the same as those poetlings who continue to describe their tender feelings in ten skinny lines when chancing upon dead robins on the side of the highway, all while consciously gaining favours by avoiding politically incorrect language and attitudes.Unless, of course, mourning dead robins is really your thing, In that case, carry on. I sure wouldn't want to, you know, offend any budding King of the proles.
"
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Christian McPherson's The Cube People
I picked up Christian McPherson's 2010 novel The Cube People on the recommendation of separate entries by two reviewers whose opinions I respect. And the first chapter didn't disappoint. The protagonist Colin MacDonald -- aspiring father and writer, and computer coding geek at an Ottawa tax office -- begins his first-person relating with, "I'm waiting to masturbate into a cup." Now since most editors apparently stop reading the manuscripts of aspiring novelists after the first turgid, generic and/or overblown sentence, this is terrific stuff. If we conflate the author with the character, perhaps Colin will have his day in the sun with his own novel. The humour of having to wank to a one-copy-only overabused Penthouse while also maintaining hygenically-considered physical contortions in the small booth is entertaining fare. The satirical character pokes are also well done: the chatty, "sympathetic" and intrusive waiting room lady as well as the Nurse Ratchett-lite holder of the semen vial. The fertility clinic could also double as a positive metaphor for authorial invention.
At chapter two, the book sinks and never resurfaces. We're immediately thrust into Colin's bleakly boring, somewhat manic though subdued, workaday world. Everyone knows that there aren't many hockey players, stunt doubles, espionage agents, or cabinet ministers writing novels, so the "write what you know" crowd, if it leaves academia, often moves to the white-collar desk where, between long breaks and downtime, one has the resources (desk, pen, paper or computer) to churn out that money-making potboiler (in fact, Colin proceeds to let us know that his first novel has been partly composed in such a fashion -- it may be interesting for some to speculate on how much was strictly autobiographical here, but not to me). And because offices are usually mind-numbingly absent of entertainment possibilities (not always, I've been in one that was always entertaining), the usual procedure is to inject "frenzied" characters into peculiar storylines. And this is what happens in The Cube People. The characters at Colin's quad -- the bitter and angry fem-warrior, the obsessive-compulsive germ neurotic, the tale-dragging physically afflicted sad sack -- are interesting for the time it takes to meet them. After that, they fill their roles but have no contour or, indeed, surprise. Their development, through plot, is inevitable and uninteresting, and worse, has little to do with other components of the story (in the office) or the stories (at home or in Colin's fictional world -- and yes, I get the various meanings of "hungry hole", but connections need more than cheesy metaphors in shock lit ).
In fact, this, along with the mediocre writing, is the biggest fault of the novel (I'll get to the writing in a bit, though the two problems conjoin). Frequent and long stretches of the book are covered with boring diary-filler, which in the case of life on the domestic front serve, I suppose, to endear us to the tribulations of the family dilemmas and emergencies which many or most can relate to (more on this later, too), but which instead just turn off at least this reader with this-happened-so-it's-important reportage.
"I wait with them at the train station until they board. I kiss Sarah and a sleeping Sammy goodbye. Sarah's on autopilot, as if she's sleepwalking. I remind her to call me day or night if she has any problems" (p.179).
Sarah's not the only one is that condition.
"Sarah is holding her belly, still laughing."
Not only is this a cliche, but it's surprising that the phrase reached that status. Has anyone ever seen anyone else actually holding her belly while laughing?
Colin's best friend Phil is employed as "wild" foil to our lusty though respectable hero. This was a wonderful opportunity to set any number of contrasting off-the-deep-end to stay-the-course adventures among the two pals. But all we get is Phil's ogling and flirting with a new "hot" hair clipper (who he then marries -- we can't even have the "wild" ones remain so in this novel of the housebroken), and their later debaucherie of pizza, choice weed, and "Blade Runner" home viewing. A Jamaican pizza deliverer appears, but it's all surface mood, no palpable effect, savvy dialogue, or cutting commentary..
There are quite a few set pieces which try for humour by slapstick/heightened emotion through emergency. One brutally unfunny scene has faithful Colin spring for chemical cheese pourings from the corner store for the rabid cravings of pregnant Sarah. Though the preamble is witty -- Colin asking for, and getting back, his loonie from the homeless man he'd just given it to -- the in-store humiliation is as funny as slipping a rubber crutch under the emaciated arm of a one-legged man. The author, through Colin, tries for elucidation towards the end: "People are giving me the eye. They likely think I'm stoned and have the munchies -- who else would eat this stuff? Undernourished pregnant women, that's who." We sympathize, Colin. We do.
And that leads to the other problem. In the few other reviews I've seen of the book, it's repeatedly praised in the "I can relate" hossannah terms. But novels, like any other artistic genre or form, have to transcend the familiar. This is a book one reads with comfy slippers and a hot toddy (only one, mind you). For all its hysterical predicaments and relatable emotions, it's a book which emits a certain stamp of recognition for those who look at the exasperated and faintly bland faces of bureaucrats treading the downtown sidewalks at 8:30 a.m. of a cloudy Monday morn. Not just recognition, but a mild pang of sympathy. But it's a world which lays out the middle-class virtues (the ending, in particular, is predictable) in a complacent, atta-boy lifestyle excursion.
At chapter two, the book sinks and never resurfaces. We're immediately thrust into Colin's bleakly boring, somewhat manic though subdued, workaday world. Everyone knows that there aren't many hockey players, stunt doubles, espionage agents, or cabinet ministers writing novels, so the "write what you know" crowd, if it leaves academia, often moves to the white-collar desk where, between long breaks and downtime, one has the resources (desk, pen, paper or computer) to churn out that money-making potboiler (in fact, Colin proceeds to let us know that his first novel has been partly composed in such a fashion -- it may be interesting for some to speculate on how much was strictly autobiographical here, but not to me). And because offices are usually mind-numbingly absent of entertainment possibilities (not always, I've been in one that was always entertaining), the usual procedure is to inject "frenzied" characters into peculiar storylines. And this is what happens in The Cube People. The characters at Colin's quad -- the bitter and angry fem-warrior, the obsessive-compulsive germ neurotic, the tale-dragging physically afflicted sad sack -- are interesting for the time it takes to meet them. After that, they fill their roles but have no contour or, indeed, surprise. Their development, through plot, is inevitable and uninteresting, and worse, has little to do with other components of the story (in the office) or the stories (at home or in Colin's fictional world -- and yes, I get the various meanings of "hungry hole", but connections need more than cheesy metaphors in shock lit ).
In fact, this, along with the mediocre writing, is the biggest fault of the novel (I'll get to the writing in a bit, though the two problems conjoin). Frequent and long stretches of the book are covered with boring diary-filler, which in the case of life on the domestic front serve, I suppose, to endear us to the tribulations of the family dilemmas and emergencies which many or most can relate to (more on this later, too), but which instead just turn off at least this reader with this-happened-so-it's-important reportage.
"I wait with them at the train station until they board. I kiss Sarah and a sleeping Sammy goodbye. Sarah's on autopilot, as if she's sleepwalking. I remind her to call me day or night if she has any problems" (p.179).
Sarah's not the only one is that condition.
"Sarah is holding her belly, still laughing."
Not only is this a cliche, but it's surprising that the phrase reached that status. Has anyone ever seen anyone else actually holding her belly while laughing?
Colin's best friend Phil is employed as "wild" foil to our lusty though respectable hero. This was a wonderful opportunity to set any number of contrasting off-the-deep-end to stay-the-course adventures among the two pals. But all we get is Phil's ogling and flirting with a new "hot" hair clipper (who he then marries -- we can't even have the "wild" ones remain so in this novel of the housebroken), and their later debaucherie of pizza, choice weed, and "Blade Runner" home viewing. A Jamaican pizza deliverer appears, but it's all surface mood, no palpable effect, savvy dialogue, or cutting commentary..
There are quite a few set pieces which try for humour by slapstick/heightened emotion through emergency. One brutally unfunny scene has faithful Colin spring for chemical cheese pourings from the corner store for the rabid cravings of pregnant Sarah. Though the preamble is witty -- Colin asking for, and getting back, his loonie from the homeless man he'd just given it to -- the in-store humiliation is as funny as slipping a rubber crutch under the emaciated arm of a one-legged man. The author, through Colin, tries for elucidation towards the end: "People are giving me the eye. They likely think I'm stoned and have the munchies -- who else would eat this stuff? Undernourished pregnant women, that's who." We sympathize, Colin. We do.
And that leads to the other problem. In the few other reviews I've seen of the book, it's repeatedly praised in the "I can relate" hossannah terms. But novels, like any other artistic genre or form, have to transcend the familiar. This is a book one reads with comfy slippers and a hot toddy (only one, mind you). For all its hysterical predicaments and relatable emotions, it's a book which emits a certain stamp of recognition for those who look at the exasperated and faintly bland faces of bureaucrats treading the downtown sidewalks at 8:30 a.m. of a cloudy Monday morn. Not just recognition, but a mild pang of sympathy. But it's a world which lays out the middle-class virtues (the ending, in particular, is predictable) in a complacent, atta-boy lifestyle excursion.
Monday, June 18, 2012
On Listening
(From Canadian Women in the Literary Arts)
"The discipline of the appreciative review is, I believe, among the great unsung arts of our culture. I suspect it remains unsung because, appearances to the contrary, it is not actually a species of speaking, but a species of listening; and our culture tends to regard listening as a passive activity. But listening — real listening — requires that we give over our attention fully to the other, that we stop worrying about who’s noticing us, that we let the ego go. As such, it is an activity requiring much more effort than the activity of proclaiming our selves through speaking our views."
....
"My suggestion is that it is those who insist on listening nonetheless who are really tough: they have the courage to continue to serve art when everything around them is making it easy not to."
....
"It’s what Rilke said: in art, as in friendship, the ear of love discerns more, and more truly, than the eye of judgement."
--from Jan Zwicky's essay, "The Ethics of the Negative Review"
Listening is, indeed, active (though not "requiring ... effort"). Real listening is joyful, without conflict, without concentration (because concentration requires effort and discipline, even force and bargaining), without judgement. When one has thus read (in this case) a passage or an entire novel or poem or book of poems through the non-state of active listening, then, and only then, can one proceed to engage with it on the so-called speaking (or writing) level. Attention or listening from a global, an absolute, perspective, begets judgement. There is no dichotomy here between love and judgement. This foolish antipodal strawman, incorrect even in a different argument, thus destroys Zwicky's assertion which is based, ironically enough, on the hurt feelings of the author, not the perceived fractured reception of the review's reader(s). But there is no ego in listening, remember? Therefore there is no one to be hurt in this global attention, this holistic approach (which only comes in fits and starts, anyway, and which only provides the basis for authoritative criticism, not the necessary relative state from which all judgement must navigate through).
Zwicky's philosophical views stem from a common spiritual misunderstanding of the nature of the absolute and relative states. One listens (or reads) ideally, from the absolute non-state, from deep listening. (It is arrogant, preposterous and strawstuffed for anyone to suggest that, because one may write a "negative" review, it somehow originates from a lack of clear listening.) A transitional "considering" state is then often given spontaneous reign. Finally, a wrestling-with relative framework will take hold, and from which the review or speech will occur. But the relative is not always in the absolute. Without active listening, any fool can misinterpret or misrepresent their own view(s) as stemming from a deep understanding. Why, all one has to do is proclaim it in a book of poems, or, in this case, in a screed, which, through misappropriation or baseline confusion, demonstrates how a fundamental error in recognizing how harsh judgement can come from a love of legitimate art can also serve to show up that same person's misunderstanding of how the absolute and relative don't oppose one another, but coexist with complicated cross-traffic.
"The discipline of the appreciative review is, I believe, among the great unsung arts of our culture. I suspect it remains unsung because, appearances to the contrary, it is not actually a species of speaking, but a species of listening; and our culture tends to regard listening as a passive activity. But listening — real listening — requires that we give over our attention fully to the other, that we stop worrying about who’s noticing us, that we let the ego go. As such, it is an activity requiring much more effort than the activity of proclaiming our selves through speaking our views."
....
"My suggestion is that it is those who insist on listening nonetheless who are really tough: they have the courage to continue to serve art when everything around them is making it easy not to."
....
"It’s what Rilke said: in art, as in friendship, the ear of love discerns more, and more truly, than the eye of judgement."
--from Jan Zwicky's essay, "The Ethics of the Negative Review"
Listening is, indeed, active (though not "requiring ... effort"). Real listening is joyful, without conflict, without concentration (because concentration requires effort and discipline, even force and bargaining), without judgement. When one has thus read (in this case) a passage or an entire novel or poem or book of poems through the non-state of active listening, then, and only then, can one proceed to engage with it on the so-called speaking (or writing) level. Attention or listening from a global, an absolute, perspective, begets judgement. There is no dichotomy here between love and judgement. This foolish antipodal strawman, incorrect even in a different argument, thus destroys Zwicky's assertion which is based, ironically enough, on the hurt feelings of the author, not the perceived fractured reception of the review's reader(s). But there is no ego in listening, remember? Therefore there is no one to be hurt in this global attention, this holistic approach (which only comes in fits and starts, anyway, and which only provides the basis for authoritative criticism, not the necessary relative state from which all judgement must navigate through).
Zwicky's philosophical views stem from a common spiritual misunderstanding of the nature of the absolute and relative states. One listens (or reads) ideally, from the absolute non-state, from deep listening. (It is arrogant, preposterous and strawstuffed for anyone to suggest that, because one may write a "negative" review, it somehow originates from a lack of clear listening.) A transitional "considering" state is then often given spontaneous reign. Finally, a wrestling-with relative framework will take hold, and from which the review or speech will occur. But the relative is not always in the absolute. Without active listening, any fool can misinterpret or misrepresent their own view(s) as stemming from a deep understanding. Why, all one has to do is proclaim it in a book of poems, or, in this case, in a screed, which, through misappropriation or baseline confusion, demonstrates how a fundamental error in recognizing how harsh judgement can come from a love of legitimate art can also serve to show up that same person's misunderstanding of how the absolute and relative don't oppose one another, but coexist with complicated cross-traffic.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Shane Neilson's Complete Physical
My ever-ready supply of two-bit Bic standards ran out for the first time in decades, and by chance I'm now using an uncomfortably fat neon blue clicker with cleverly drawn stethoscope in the shape of a heart, the word "we" nestled inside, the word "care" nudging from without. "Home Health Services", in much smaller letters underneath, completes the graphic on the column. The ink is black. I'd also like to add that today, for the seventh time since 1369 or so, Venus passes in front of the sun. Unfortunately, clouds and rain are in the forecast (just past midnight as of this sentence).
"For Krissake, get to the poems!"
"Metaphors are easy". So begins "Reading Electrocardiograms", a poem from Shane Neilson's 2010 collection Complete Physical. Those words came back to me when I weighed options for an opening to this review. Easy, indeed. After all, Neilson contradicts himself later in the poem when the ocean acts as missing half of the metaphorical coupling. Humorous construction, and the list of failed metaphors that begin the poem show that that poetic staple can scatter unconvincingly or sear like a permanent brand.
My opening paragraph-gambit is a cheap metaphor, but what's worse, a misplaced or misjudged one. Serendipity, perhaps. Or just a cute coincidence. But the professional life of a general practitioner in the Hippocratic Arts would seem to be a word aquifer in horizon-long fields of freshet-spilling metaphorical rows. Who needs constantly gamed irrigation?
Well, not so fast. In "Campanology", Neilson (I'll dispense with an equivocating "narrator' or "speaker") is "dumbfouded/in ... office, as death robs all vocabulary/and grief fills in interstices". Note the clear ("clear", that dirty, dirty postmodern word) exasperation of language failing because of metaphysical inexplicableness in the fierce and dull prods of the daily rounds, ironically stated in understandable onomatopoeia ("long lowing moan"). But then, like Alden Nowlan and Milton Acorn, two poets who've influenced Neilson, the author is interested in practical axiology, and the hunkered down -- and at times furious -- puzzles never completed. Neilson has no fear of ending a poem ("On Conducting Complete Physicals") with, "There would have to be a treatment for love./What would it be?". (I'm reminded of Robert Lowell's "narrator's" response to the psychiatric staff sent to pick him up, and who told him he wouldn't need to take his Dante with him: -- "what will I need there?")
But it's not all black bile. Unlike many other themed books (and it must be noted that themed books are becoming the rampant norm), the tone is varied, and impressively so since the array of voices are convincing and authoritative. The one-sentence poem "All Pain Can Be Controlled" is hilarious even as it inserts the burr; thoughts during an exhausted homecoming while escaping "fecal wafts and fluorescence" ("On-Call Song: To My Wife") express a finely integrated range and sequence of emotion.
I enjoyed the rich character studies. The elegiac "The Death of Leo Emberson, November 2006" was a highlight, but, as with some of Peter Richardson's fascinating narratives, I wanted the poem to continue for several pages. Poetry may be concision, but tributes deserve details, and lots of 'em. Also refreshing is Neilson's honouring of the other. I never got the sense that he was using his patients as props for self-examination.
And on that note, I end with my own overblown metaphor as I turn out the light and enter that nightly death. Setting down the blue dart. Good night.
"For Krissake, get to the poems!"
"Metaphors are easy". So begins "Reading Electrocardiograms", a poem from Shane Neilson's 2010 collection Complete Physical. Those words came back to me when I weighed options for an opening to this review. Easy, indeed. After all, Neilson contradicts himself later in the poem when the ocean acts as missing half of the metaphorical coupling. Humorous construction, and the list of failed metaphors that begin the poem show that that poetic staple can scatter unconvincingly or sear like a permanent brand.
My opening paragraph-gambit is a cheap metaphor, but what's worse, a misplaced or misjudged one. Serendipity, perhaps. Or just a cute coincidence. But the professional life of a general practitioner in the Hippocratic Arts would seem to be a word aquifer in horizon-long fields of freshet-spilling metaphorical rows. Who needs constantly gamed irrigation?
Well, not so fast. In "Campanology", Neilson (I'll dispense with an equivocating "narrator' or "speaker") is "dumbfouded/in ... office, as death robs all vocabulary/and grief fills in interstices". Note the clear ("clear", that dirty, dirty postmodern word) exasperation of language failing because of metaphysical inexplicableness in the fierce and dull prods of the daily rounds, ironically stated in understandable onomatopoeia ("long lowing moan"). But then, like Alden Nowlan and Milton Acorn, two poets who've influenced Neilson, the author is interested in practical axiology, and the hunkered down -- and at times furious -- puzzles never completed. Neilson has no fear of ending a poem ("On Conducting Complete Physicals") with, "There would have to be a treatment for love./What would it be?". (I'm reminded of Robert Lowell's "narrator's" response to the psychiatric staff sent to pick him up, and who told him he wouldn't need to take his Dante with him: -- "what will I need there?")
But it's not all black bile. Unlike many other themed books (and it must be noted that themed books are becoming the rampant norm), the tone is varied, and impressively so since the array of voices are convincing and authoritative. The one-sentence poem "All Pain Can Be Controlled" is hilarious even as it inserts the burr; thoughts during an exhausted homecoming while escaping "fecal wafts and fluorescence" ("On-Call Song: To My Wife") express a finely integrated range and sequence of emotion.
I enjoyed the rich character studies. The elegiac "The Death of Leo Emberson, November 2006" was a highlight, but, as with some of Peter Richardson's fascinating narratives, I wanted the poem to continue for several pages. Poetry may be concision, but tributes deserve details, and lots of 'em. Also refreshing is Neilson's honouring of the other. I never got the sense that he was using his patients as props for self-examination.
And on that note, I end with my own overblown metaphor as I turn out the light and enter that nightly death. Setting down the blue dart. Good night.
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