http://voxpopulism.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/what-i-think-i-might-think/
Another perceptive post from Jacob Mooney. I like this --
"If a book review reads like a consumer report on a microwave, the reviewer has failed to take any chances, to have vision, and has let me down."(Mooney)
Or the academic-descriptive opposite: "Get it hot!"
One of only a few disagreements I have is his contention that a good review is, or should be, harder to write than a good poem.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Peter Trower Reading in Gibsons, BC
http://www.the-garage-fitness.com/peter%20trower.mp3
First half(not reproduced here) was Heather Haley and Lyle Neff. I'll post their readings when I can.
First half(not reproduced here) was Heather Haley and Lyle Neff. I'll post their readings when I can.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Paul Vermeersch On Intent, Snark, and Missing the Point
http://www.paulvermeersch.blogspot.com/
A well-written and well-considered post from Paul Vermeersch on unfair reviewing practices.
"In critical discourse, engaging with "intent" has more to do with understanding how the poetry works within its given mode, understanding how a text has been assembled and reading it with an eye towards understanding its purpose, its message, and its content"(Vermeersch)
Nicely put. Unfortunately, you and Chris Banks misunderstand where I'M coming from. I agree with your broad definition above. But where do we go from there? I've stated on at least one occasion that I understand perfectly well many of the tricks of (to use just one recent tradition) postmodernism. I can understand what an author is intending when he or she substitutes one vowel in an anagram to alter the meaning at the expense of the original sloganeering author of the anagram. My questions of intent go far deeper than sussing out the procedure. What is the purpose for the rearrangement? In the case of my recent online review of Jeff Derksen's Transnational Muscle Cars, this one tiny example from it can't stir me to imagine anything deeper than to interpret it as pseudo-clever commentary on a banality. It's slight; it's easy; and, ultimately and ironically, it's witless. Did Derksen have a "deeper", more hidden meaning that needed to be ferreted out? I don't know. This is where I'm actually conceding power, as such, to the author. It would be arrogant and presumptuous of me to guess at a deeper meaning than I can realize for myself. If others are more intellectually nimble, all the more power to them. But for me, the effect is clear, but even were the intent clear, it does not mean that that's the end of the story, otherwise all criticism would be boringly descriptive (oh, wait, most of it already is). No. I get it, and it's uninteresting. But even if I don't get it, even if I say I do, it doesn't matter because it didn't speak to me. I need to be engaged and drawn in to it. The lack of communication goes both ways.
The other prism-extreme is opaque light. Many poets pride themselves on their difficulty, their multiple-voiced approach, or confusion of syntax, or missing connectives, or verbless auras, or gymnastic typographies, or fractured narratives which can't even be called narratives unless three words of a phrase can be considered a partial story. I can glean some of the clues through the poetical asides, but ultimately, the author wins the game because the expressed purpose is to frustrate expectation, story-to-meaning linear development, the authority of the lyrical "I". Again, that I can "get", but so what? There is (to me) no joy in the game, no revelation (despite it being explained to me in frequent prose splashes, which kinda defeats the game, it seems), no music in its enfolding, no elegance of voice or vision. But because so much of this is admittedly impenetrable (from the reader and author's perspective), the author gets to have the proverbial cake while eating it. Criticism, negative but also positive, is impertinent, gauche, ultimately futile. Where does intention end and "let's play 42 ambiguities", or better yet "fuck meaning", begin?
"For example, one would not (should not) measure a poem by E.E. Cummings with the same material yardstick one would use to measure a poem by Robert Frost, or whichever two dissimilar poets you might choose. The two poets have a different ethos, a different project, a different way of communicating, a different "intent" that is expressly manifest in their work."(Vermeersch)
Of course. This is elementary stuff. But you're conflating a reviewer's approach to one specific author to that of comparative and contrasting connections between different authors. I can dig up (or try to) the methodologies, devices, and meanings embedded in one author's single poem, but I would only bring another poet onto the stage in this line if similarities in those devices existed, or if the devices were similar but a curious difference in mood existed. Other reasons would also exist, obviously, but these two approaches are frequent examples in the reviewing canon. cummings used enjambments supremely, for example, whereas Frost was an increbibly subtle sound engineer. Well, obviously I'm not going to fault in Frost a staple of cummings, or vice versa. Again, you're simplifying my arguement, lopping off its limbs to fit a ready-made coffin. But I'm not yet fit to be buried.
"It's disingenuous to say a critic cannot, given a close reading, determine the functionality of a text, and from that, extrapolate its purpose and gauge that against the traditions it either draws upon or tries to subvert."(Vermeersch)
I don't have much problem with the above, but it seems as though only one side is being called to account here. Why don't we ask the author what the "intent" was? Should it always be a consensus of unambiguous clarity once the teacher-student exploration is finished with the classroom bell? And if the author has to successfully explain the dynamics where confusion once existed, is this not akin to a comic explaining an joke? If the meaning, method, and motive is transparent, is there an issue at all? The above quote, Mr Vermeersch, is rather a vague one, one lacking in context and specificity. Again, it sounds good, and I think I can agree, but it's just a starting point for conversation.
"If a critic understands the "intent" of a piece, for instance, he will not declare that a poem failed to be a sonnet when in fact it meant to be a lipogram, or vice versa."(Vermeersch)
This is blindingly obvious. None of the opponents of intentionality have made that leap.
"Only the most rigidly fundamentalist critical approaches disregard "intent" completely."(Vermeersch)
Agreed.
"I dislike fundamentalisms of any kind, and that includes both critical and aesthetic ones. In poetics, at both the conservative and radical ends of the spectrum, you have those modes that fetishize their own kind of formalism to the detriment of (or even to the exclusion of) concerns about content. (Vermeersch)
How do you come up with that conclusion in the very few non-ad hominem charges being made against the two reviewers on the "dismissive" side of this "debate"? I've repeatedly declared, and showed through my own criticism both on-line and in journal form, how content and form mesh, and at their best, marry. I won't dish out examples here since it'd be essay-length, but the record is there. Please feel free to peruse. (Oh, and before someone steps up and labels me with the convenient "snark" shut-up ploy, I unhesitatingly agree I've written snark when I think snark is called for. If an author insults my intelligence and good will by foisting upon me sloppy construction, banal suggestions, and muddy sonorities, I'll return the favour by expressing my displeasure for having lost a few hours or more of my time and imaginative capacity.) I've written snark; I've also written longish, finely-tuned essays. Guess which of the approaches is matched by books I like, and which is matched by what I dislike.
"When such fundamentalists bring their aesthetic ideology (their dogma?) into the critical arena, they end up measuring poetries against it that aren't compatible with their criteria. Holders of this position cannot help but commit the fallacy of saying, "the non-traditional is bad because it is not the traditional" or vice versa. They mistake the rationalization or the justification of taste with the application of reason and critical rigor."(Vermeersch)
You've successfully mounted your hobby-horse, and are now riding it out of the purview of the discussion. You're talking here in generalities. Of course there are those who are entrenched formalists. I had a Shakespearean prof at UBC who hadn't a good word to say about any poet since T S Eliot. But the brouhaha here concerns two specific reviewers, one of whom is typing these words. Everyone has preferences. It's disingenuous or hypocritical to say otherwise. How many poets or reviewers do you know who appreciate, equally, the work of Steve McCaffery and Richard Outram? I, broad-minded and semi-patient soul that I am, actually picked up a copy of one of the former's books of poetry. I stopped after 1 1/2 pages. Out of the over 100 books of poetry I read last year, it was only one of two I couldn't completely finish. At what point does big-heartedness and open-mindedness give way to masochism? I had a strong aversion, obviously an immediate one, to what I read. You're damn right it's about "taste" at that point. If that makes me narrow-minded, flame away. But I thoughtfully engage with all sorts of poetry: so-called experimental, formalist, avant-garde, free verse, anecdotal, light verse, occasional verse, epic, narrative, dramatic monologues, eclogues, plays in blank verse, prose poems, commemorations, elegies, satirical thrusts, maledictions, tributes, love poems, historical re-enactments, odes, odds and ends.
"So, according to Julavits, a refusal to engage with intent is a key ingredient in snarkiness. The critic is there to look clever and bitchy, and engagement with the books, and with literature in general, is secondary. Snarkiness is inherently self-serving, and generally at someone else’s expense. It’s selfish. I agree that this style of book reviewing has become all too prevalent in recent years. I believe that even if a reviewer dislikes a work, he can afford its author the dignity of treating it seriously."(Vermeersch)
See my comments above on why I write snark. If the author doesn't have the ability or sensitivity not to inflict ready-to-go poetry on an unsuspecting reader (reviewer, in this case), then I have the self-declared authority to return the favour by giving my honest opinion which, more and more in these days of runaway publication-distribution, involves harsh opinions on what I've just undergone.
What's really amazing about this whiny defensiveness is the differences of reactions with receivers in other artistic worlds. If someone sees a movie, no one will think anything about someone or many someones trashing the movie mercilessly. And we're talking here of huge productions: the highest paid actors, A list directors, all the budget needed, etc.... But when a reviewer snarks an obscure book of poetry, it's the big bad meanies who are to blame for not "engaging" properly with the "textual nuances and intentions". The reader has the right to express her or his honest feelings about what they've just read even if you think they're wrong. Another review will always come along, and if the book truly has worth and staying power, the snarky author will have proven him- or herself to be a petty bonehead, and the snark will be forgotten. It has nothing to do with scoring cheap points by being humourous and witty to show off. And that brings me to another beef the whiners have about reviewers. What the hell is wrong with some malicious fun? Gawd! Are we all so sensitive that wordy salvos can't be launched by readers offended by any number of reasons? Sometimes a book isn't worthy of an exhaustive negative review, and I'd think an author would rather prefer a brief snark than a detailed, damning negative assessment. The "snark is bad" crowd ask for more nuanced reviews. Well, then, find someone who's willing to (first) read the book, and then to spend the amount of time (freely given) to work laboriously to a long word-count on a book they despise. That's rarely going to happen. So positive reviews, by psychological and emotional agreement, will inevitably be more numerously linked to long, nuanced, painstakingly referenced work.
"and if he does not believe a work warrants serious critical attention, positive or negative, then why review it? Just to be bitchy?"(Vermeersch)
No. Because I read it. A snark is at times a valid response, an honest emotional response to what one has read. A general audience deserves to know what I think, even if such an audience is only largely imagined.
"This seems to go hand in hand with the fallacy that all insults are honest and all civility is phony, or that trying to hurt or demoralize people is a valid critical stance.
It isn’t."(Vermeersch)
I agree. But I'd much rather have someone call me silly names than to have my motives questioned, and incorrectly so, my emotional responses intuited in nasty and incorrect speculation, and my "careerist" propensities outlined in smug certitude. Such reactivity is hypocritical spirituality at its most nauseous.
Thank you for the chance at a more substantive discussion.
A well-written and well-considered post from Paul Vermeersch on unfair reviewing practices.
"In critical discourse, engaging with "intent" has more to do with understanding how the poetry works within its given mode, understanding how a text has been assembled and reading it with an eye towards understanding its purpose, its message, and its content"(Vermeersch)
Nicely put. Unfortunately, you and Chris Banks misunderstand where I'M coming from. I agree with your broad definition above. But where do we go from there? I've stated on at least one occasion that I understand perfectly well many of the tricks of (to use just one recent tradition) postmodernism. I can understand what an author is intending when he or she substitutes one vowel in an anagram to alter the meaning at the expense of the original sloganeering author of the anagram. My questions of intent go far deeper than sussing out the procedure. What is the purpose for the rearrangement? In the case of my recent online review of Jeff Derksen's Transnational Muscle Cars, this one tiny example from it can't stir me to imagine anything deeper than to interpret it as pseudo-clever commentary on a banality. It's slight; it's easy; and, ultimately and ironically, it's witless. Did Derksen have a "deeper", more hidden meaning that needed to be ferreted out? I don't know. This is where I'm actually conceding power, as such, to the author. It would be arrogant and presumptuous of me to guess at a deeper meaning than I can realize for myself. If others are more intellectually nimble, all the more power to them. But for me, the effect is clear, but even were the intent clear, it does not mean that that's the end of the story, otherwise all criticism would be boringly descriptive (oh, wait, most of it already is). No. I get it, and it's uninteresting. But even if I don't get it, even if I say I do, it doesn't matter because it didn't speak to me. I need to be engaged and drawn in to it. The lack of communication goes both ways.
The other prism-extreme is opaque light. Many poets pride themselves on their difficulty, their multiple-voiced approach, or confusion of syntax, or missing connectives, or verbless auras, or gymnastic typographies, or fractured narratives which can't even be called narratives unless three words of a phrase can be considered a partial story. I can glean some of the clues through the poetical asides, but ultimately, the author wins the game because the expressed purpose is to frustrate expectation, story-to-meaning linear development, the authority of the lyrical "I". Again, that I can "get", but so what? There is (to me) no joy in the game, no revelation (despite it being explained to me in frequent prose splashes, which kinda defeats the game, it seems), no music in its enfolding, no elegance of voice or vision. But because so much of this is admittedly impenetrable (from the reader and author's perspective), the author gets to have the proverbial cake while eating it. Criticism, negative but also positive, is impertinent, gauche, ultimately futile. Where does intention end and "let's play 42 ambiguities", or better yet "fuck meaning", begin?
"For example, one would not (should not) measure a poem by E.E. Cummings with the same material yardstick one would use to measure a poem by Robert Frost, or whichever two dissimilar poets you might choose. The two poets have a different ethos, a different project, a different way of communicating, a different "intent" that is expressly manifest in their work."(Vermeersch)
Of course. This is elementary stuff. But you're conflating a reviewer's approach to one specific author to that of comparative and contrasting connections between different authors. I can dig up (or try to) the methodologies, devices, and meanings embedded in one author's single poem, but I would only bring another poet onto the stage in this line if similarities in those devices existed, or if the devices were similar but a curious difference in mood existed. Other reasons would also exist, obviously, but these two approaches are frequent examples in the reviewing canon. cummings used enjambments supremely, for example, whereas Frost was an increbibly subtle sound engineer. Well, obviously I'm not going to fault in Frost a staple of cummings, or vice versa. Again, you're simplifying my arguement, lopping off its limbs to fit a ready-made coffin. But I'm not yet fit to be buried.
"It's disingenuous to say a critic cannot, given a close reading, determine the functionality of a text, and from that, extrapolate its purpose and gauge that against the traditions it either draws upon or tries to subvert."(Vermeersch)
I don't have much problem with the above, but it seems as though only one side is being called to account here. Why don't we ask the author what the "intent" was? Should it always be a consensus of unambiguous clarity once the teacher-student exploration is finished with the classroom bell? And if the author has to successfully explain the dynamics where confusion once existed, is this not akin to a comic explaining an joke? If the meaning, method, and motive is transparent, is there an issue at all? The above quote, Mr Vermeersch, is rather a vague one, one lacking in context and specificity. Again, it sounds good, and I think I can agree, but it's just a starting point for conversation.
"If a critic understands the "intent" of a piece, for instance, he will not declare that a poem failed to be a sonnet when in fact it meant to be a lipogram, or vice versa."(Vermeersch)
This is blindingly obvious. None of the opponents of intentionality have made that leap.
"Only the most rigidly fundamentalist critical approaches disregard "intent" completely."(Vermeersch)
Agreed.
"I dislike fundamentalisms of any kind, and that includes both critical and aesthetic ones. In poetics, at both the conservative and radical ends of the spectrum, you have those modes that fetishize their own kind of formalism to the detriment of (or even to the exclusion of) concerns about content. (Vermeersch)
How do you come up with that conclusion in the very few non-ad hominem charges being made against the two reviewers on the "dismissive" side of this "debate"? I've repeatedly declared, and showed through my own criticism both on-line and in journal form, how content and form mesh, and at their best, marry. I won't dish out examples here since it'd be essay-length, but the record is there. Please feel free to peruse. (Oh, and before someone steps up and labels me with the convenient "snark" shut-up ploy, I unhesitatingly agree I've written snark when I think snark is called for. If an author insults my intelligence and good will by foisting upon me sloppy construction, banal suggestions, and muddy sonorities, I'll return the favour by expressing my displeasure for having lost a few hours or more of my time and imaginative capacity.) I've written snark; I've also written longish, finely-tuned essays. Guess which of the approaches is matched by books I like, and which is matched by what I dislike.
"When such fundamentalists bring their aesthetic ideology (their dogma?) into the critical arena, they end up measuring poetries against it that aren't compatible with their criteria. Holders of this position cannot help but commit the fallacy of saying, "the non-traditional is bad because it is not the traditional" or vice versa. They mistake the rationalization or the justification of taste with the application of reason and critical rigor."(Vermeersch)
You've successfully mounted your hobby-horse, and are now riding it out of the purview of the discussion. You're talking here in generalities. Of course there are those who are entrenched formalists. I had a Shakespearean prof at UBC who hadn't a good word to say about any poet since T S Eliot. But the brouhaha here concerns two specific reviewers, one of whom is typing these words. Everyone has preferences. It's disingenuous or hypocritical to say otherwise. How many poets or reviewers do you know who appreciate, equally, the work of Steve McCaffery and Richard Outram? I, broad-minded and semi-patient soul that I am, actually picked up a copy of one of the former's books of poetry. I stopped after 1 1/2 pages. Out of the over 100 books of poetry I read last year, it was only one of two I couldn't completely finish. At what point does big-heartedness and open-mindedness give way to masochism? I had a strong aversion, obviously an immediate one, to what I read. You're damn right it's about "taste" at that point. If that makes me narrow-minded, flame away. But I thoughtfully engage with all sorts of poetry: so-called experimental, formalist, avant-garde, free verse, anecdotal, light verse, occasional verse, epic, narrative, dramatic monologues, eclogues, plays in blank verse, prose poems, commemorations, elegies, satirical thrusts, maledictions, tributes, love poems, historical re-enactments, odes, odds and ends.
"So, according to Julavits, a refusal to engage with intent is a key ingredient in snarkiness. The critic is there to look clever and bitchy, and engagement with the books, and with literature in general, is secondary. Snarkiness is inherently self-serving, and generally at someone else’s expense. It’s selfish. I agree that this style of book reviewing has become all too prevalent in recent years. I believe that even if a reviewer dislikes a work, he can afford its author the dignity of treating it seriously."(Vermeersch)
See my comments above on why I write snark. If the author doesn't have the ability or sensitivity not to inflict ready-to-go poetry on an unsuspecting reader (reviewer, in this case), then I have the self-declared authority to return the favour by giving my honest opinion which, more and more in these days of runaway publication-distribution, involves harsh opinions on what I've just undergone.
What's really amazing about this whiny defensiveness is the differences of reactions with receivers in other artistic worlds. If someone sees a movie, no one will think anything about someone or many someones trashing the movie mercilessly. And we're talking here of huge productions: the highest paid actors, A list directors, all the budget needed, etc.... But when a reviewer snarks an obscure book of poetry, it's the big bad meanies who are to blame for not "engaging" properly with the "textual nuances and intentions". The reader has the right to express her or his honest feelings about what they've just read even if you think they're wrong. Another review will always come along, and if the book truly has worth and staying power, the snarky author will have proven him- or herself to be a petty bonehead, and the snark will be forgotten. It has nothing to do with scoring cheap points by being humourous and witty to show off. And that brings me to another beef the whiners have about reviewers. What the hell is wrong with some malicious fun? Gawd! Are we all so sensitive that wordy salvos can't be launched by readers offended by any number of reasons? Sometimes a book isn't worthy of an exhaustive negative review, and I'd think an author would rather prefer a brief snark than a detailed, damning negative assessment. The "snark is bad" crowd ask for more nuanced reviews. Well, then, find someone who's willing to (first) read the book, and then to spend the amount of time (freely given) to work laboriously to a long word-count on a book they despise. That's rarely going to happen. So positive reviews, by psychological and emotional agreement, will inevitably be more numerously linked to long, nuanced, painstakingly referenced work.
"and if he does not believe a work warrants serious critical attention, positive or negative, then why review it? Just to be bitchy?"(Vermeersch)
No. Because I read it. A snark is at times a valid response, an honest emotional response to what one has read. A general audience deserves to know what I think, even if such an audience is only largely imagined.
"This seems to go hand in hand with the fallacy that all insults are honest and all civility is phony, or that trying to hurt or demoralize people is a valid critical stance.
It isn’t."(Vermeersch)
I agree. But I'd much rather have someone call me silly names than to have my motives questioned, and incorrectly so, my emotional responses intuited in nasty and incorrect speculation, and my "careerist" propensities outlined in smug certitude. Such reactivity is hypocritical spirituality at its most nauseous.
Thank you for the chance at a more substantive discussion.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Good Evening, Parishioners!
http://voxpopulism.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/know-your-audience-when-your-audience-is-yourself/
I'd only begun to read Jacob Mooney's blog a week or so ago. He's a very perceptive reviewer, so it's been a delightful experience. And though many bloggers start out with numerous postings in their first few weeks only to write more sporadically before abandoning the project altogether, I hope he blogs in verbose variation for a long time. I'd like to respond to a few misconceptions, and from differences in perspective, from his latest above linked contribution.
"I happen to think that the offended party (Table Music’s Chris Banks) has more than ample reason to be offended by Palmu’s cursory reading, but that’s not quite the topic of this blog post."(Mooney)
I have no problem whatsoever with Chris Banks being offended by my review. I also have no problem with an alternative interpretation, one that disagrees with mine. Maybe I'd even learn something from it. But I do have a problem with the suggestion that the review was compromised by its limited word count. (And since you included this tidbit, then by definition, it is an important part of the post.) I could have written another 2, 000 words on Cold Panes, but because I'm doing this for free -- since (for example) there is one book published every one minute and forty seconds in the U.S., and since reviewing poetry books plays only one part of my fascinating gadabout multi-faceted life, which include many enjoyable endeavours not linked to the world of books at all -- I not only deferred, but positively demurred, to an extended exposition. Not all short reviews are supposed to deal in sophisticated detail. Another 2,000 words would have added more examples from the poems themselves, more nuanced observations. But the tone would have been the same. I outlined my salient impressions of the book.
"This is why following the flow of banal witticisms and counter-witticisms over the past few weeks has been so numbingly disappointing. Because it’s not really a conversation about any of the things it pretends to be about."(Mooney)
Amen! Though, from my side, I never pretended it was about intentionality vs execution, objectivity vs subjectivity. Banks started off with ad hominem, inserted the "intentionality" card as his lone dust-in-the-eyes substantive ploy, then continued with unintentionally ironic assumptions, misrepresentations, off-topic charges, contradictory assessments. Look, I'm not above sparring with someone who's upset with a negative review who then goes on a sweeping condemnatory paranoid spree. It's highly entertaining, and by my incredible mercury-spiking Stat-Counter hits, it obviously is so for others, as well.
Your heart is in the right place, Mr Mooney, when you talk of the importance of keeping to reviews of critical engagement, but my blog was virtually ignored when I wrote, for a year and a half, columns on any number of Canadian poetry collections, recent or in the past 20 years, avant-garde or formal, from celebrated poets or from those whose obscurity matched October evening slugs under a pile of swept leaves. I'm all for writing reviews and for discussing those reviews, or reading and discussing others' reviews and books. Anybody else want to join in? (And by discussing poetry, of course, I don't mean unending author profiles, chit-chat, and thematic concerns, popular on a few other Canadian blogs.)
"It’s about two groups of people with a personal dislike for one another, one that I know only bits and pieces about, but that I understand has been going on for some time."(Mooney)
I haven't met my two adversaries in this particular to-and-fro. I haven't read any of Lemon Hound's poetry. I've read Banks' two books, I've read his two polemics, and I've read Lemon Hound's .... er.... contributions (to use a charitable word) over the past two weeks. It's just words on virtual pages, Mr Mooney. When the lights go out at the end of the eve or in the early morn, the last thing on my mind is what barbs my two opponents have been busy conjuring up while I sleep, guard down and vulnerable.
"We are a slightly more evolved sub-set of the species, us poets, I honestly believe that."(Mooney)
Do you really believe that? Sorry, that's bullshit. I've lived enough decades in enough circumstances, professions, social groups, settings, relationships, and have had long and various social connections with many poets (though not with a large "poetic community", whatever that means). I've been a very lucky man in that I've met, befriended, been intimate on many levels with, fought with, reconciled with, and have had a world of treasured memories of so many different non-poets of all kinds in my life. Being a poet means you're good with words. Full stop. Spiritual sensitivity and moral virtue has never been amplified, and certainly not exclusively identified, with being a poet, in my long experience.
"What I’m tip-toeing along the edges of is a public argument, a group of people in a restaurant calling each other out on long-held animosities."(Mooney)
Again, I hadn't given Chris Banks more than a few passing thoughts after reviewing his book a year ago until the past few weeks, when he came out guns-a-blazin' on his new blog. Animosity is a harsh word for this amusement, at least I can only speak for myself. I hope he recovers from the negative review (it has been a year, after all) and goes on to delight himself and (hopefully) others with his future words.
Thank you for your concerned post, Mr Mooney. Sincerely. And I echo, underline, red star, highlight, and applaud your words to engage seriously with others' poetry. Maybe when this particular rhubarb subsides, more attention will be paid to the words on the papyrus or Microsoft screen, and not so much with the reviewer's supposed dark motivations for writing them. I'm not holding my breath, though.
I'd only begun to read Jacob Mooney's blog a week or so ago. He's a very perceptive reviewer, so it's been a delightful experience. And though many bloggers start out with numerous postings in their first few weeks only to write more sporadically before abandoning the project altogether, I hope he blogs in verbose variation for a long time. I'd like to respond to a few misconceptions, and from differences in perspective, from his latest above linked contribution.
"I happen to think that the offended party (Table Music’s Chris Banks) has more than ample reason to be offended by Palmu’s cursory reading, but that’s not quite the topic of this blog post."(Mooney)
I have no problem whatsoever with Chris Banks being offended by my review. I also have no problem with an alternative interpretation, one that disagrees with mine. Maybe I'd even learn something from it. But I do have a problem with the suggestion that the review was compromised by its limited word count. (And since you included this tidbit, then by definition, it is an important part of the post.) I could have written another 2, 000 words on Cold Panes, but because I'm doing this for free -- since (for example) there is one book published every one minute and forty seconds in the U.S., and since reviewing poetry books plays only one part of my fascinating gadabout multi-faceted life, which include many enjoyable endeavours not linked to the world of books at all -- I not only deferred, but positively demurred, to an extended exposition. Not all short reviews are supposed to deal in sophisticated detail. Another 2,000 words would have added more examples from the poems themselves, more nuanced observations. But the tone would have been the same. I outlined my salient impressions of the book.
"This is why following the flow of banal witticisms and counter-witticisms over the past few weeks has been so numbingly disappointing. Because it’s not really a conversation about any of the things it pretends to be about."(Mooney)
Amen! Though, from my side, I never pretended it was about intentionality vs execution, objectivity vs subjectivity. Banks started off with ad hominem, inserted the "intentionality" card as his lone dust-in-the-eyes substantive ploy, then continued with unintentionally ironic assumptions, misrepresentations, off-topic charges, contradictory assessments. Look, I'm not above sparring with someone who's upset with a negative review who then goes on a sweeping condemnatory paranoid spree. It's highly entertaining, and by my incredible mercury-spiking Stat-Counter hits, it obviously is so for others, as well.
Your heart is in the right place, Mr Mooney, when you talk of the importance of keeping to reviews of critical engagement, but my blog was virtually ignored when I wrote, for a year and a half, columns on any number of Canadian poetry collections, recent or in the past 20 years, avant-garde or formal, from celebrated poets or from those whose obscurity matched October evening slugs under a pile of swept leaves. I'm all for writing reviews and for discussing those reviews, or reading and discussing others' reviews and books. Anybody else want to join in? (And by discussing poetry, of course, I don't mean unending author profiles, chit-chat, and thematic concerns, popular on a few other Canadian blogs.)
"It’s about two groups of people with a personal dislike for one another, one that I know only bits and pieces about, but that I understand has been going on for some time."(Mooney)
I haven't met my two adversaries in this particular to-and-fro. I haven't read any of Lemon Hound's poetry. I've read Banks' two books, I've read his two polemics, and I've read Lemon Hound's .... er.... contributions (to use a charitable word) over the past two weeks. It's just words on virtual pages, Mr Mooney. When the lights go out at the end of the eve or in the early morn, the last thing on my mind is what barbs my two opponents have been busy conjuring up while I sleep, guard down and vulnerable.
"We are a slightly more evolved sub-set of the species, us poets, I honestly believe that."(Mooney)
Do you really believe that? Sorry, that's bullshit. I've lived enough decades in enough circumstances, professions, social groups, settings, relationships, and have had long and various social connections with many poets (though not with a large "poetic community", whatever that means). I've been a very lucky man in that I've met, befriended, been intimate on many levels with, fought with, reconciled with, and have had a world of treasured memories of so many different non-poets of all kinds in my life. Being a poet means you're good with words. Full stop. Spiritual sensitivity and moral virtue has never been amplified, and certainly not exclusively identified, with being a poet, in my long experience.
"What I’m tip-toeing along the edges of is a public argument, a group of people in a restaurant calling each other out on long-held animosities."(Mooney)
Again, I hadn't given Chris Banks more than a few passing thoughts after reviewing his book a year ago until the past few weeks, when he came out guns-a-blazin' on his new blog. Animosity is a harsh word for this amusement, at least I can only speak for myself. I hope he recovers from the negative review (it has been a year, after all) and goes on to delight himself and (hopefully) others with his future words.
Thank you for your concerned post, Mr Mooney. Sincerely. And I echo, underline, red star, highlight, and applaud your words to engage seriously with others' poetry. Maybe when this particular rhubarb subsides, more attention will be paid to the words on the papyrus or Microsoft screen, and not so much with the reviewer's supposed dark motivations for writing them. I'm not holding my breath, though.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Raphael Dervish's MOSQUITO COILS
The 2006 release by U.S. press Hoboken On My Mind of Raphael Dervish's Mosquito Coils fell through the proverbial reviewing cracks, it seems. I wasn't aware of this masterpiece (yes, that word is overused, but it still has force) until last month when a chance meeting with a Frank Sinatra karaoke crooner put the title on my lap. The book has nothing to do with the Mafia or waterfront politics, and that's just a small indicator of its off-beat charm and pioneering elan.
The overriding theme and mood of Dervish's third and most ambitious volume of poetry is one of sanguine somnolence, and the poem's opener (put down here in full) serves as an appropriate guide:
WE LEFT
We left
the train of a Sunday eve
pantcuffs wagging
in the starchy breeze
fools begging for autographs
by the rusted oil cans
brimming with exploded Oxydol
and rat whiskers
O! I lay down
on a corn husk
and snored an aria
counterpointed with the ocean's hush
in a makeshift jamboree
of the night.
This is a curious entry, and the first thing that struck my mind was the nature of the union of "we". "We" simply disappears. Or does it? Is this mysterious companion the reader? Or perhaps a figment of the narrator's erratic imagination? An indistinct homeless person wandering with the enigmatic lyricist? Whatever the answer (or possible answers) we know this much: people come and go, and you don't have to have viewed a statue to realize the breathtaking possibilities on the horizon.
The next several poems abruptly shift gears, and the reader is tossed into a maelstrom, a veritable broth of churning metaphysical goo. "Hard-Ass Wisdom On Two-Fifty A Pipe" outlines the cultural miscues and misunderstandings involved when a party of three occasional acquaintances get together to celebrate the posthumous release of a K-Tel Rat Pack double DVD, only to discover that pipe tobacco and rabid anti-smokers don't parlay their desire for compromise into a happy Frankie sing-a-long. Important moral and social questions emerge, here, and in the remainder of this powerfully felt and erudite book: does our desire for ingesting chemicals outweigh the importance of campy proximate clubbiness? Do we have the right to be selfish when it endangers others' joy? Is there such an idea as "too much of a good thing"? Dervish doesn't condescend by leading the reader by the nose into a pre-fab confessional, but lets the questions hang like air from residual belches after the guilty one has scarfed the double anchovies pizza with garlic, washed down by a bean sundae.
There are too many other highlights here to properly address without taking away the surprise of what will surely be Dervish's turning point in a long but sporadic career spanning the beginning of MTV through to nerdy Tony Soprano groupies sporting bolo ties.
Buy it. Read it. Live it.
The overriding theme and mood of Dervish's third and most ambitious volume of poetry is one of sanguine somnolence, and the poem's opener (put down here in full) serves as an appropriate guide:
WE LEFT
We left
the train of a Sunday eve
pantcuffs wagging
in the starchy breeze
fools begging for autographs
by the rusted oil cans
brimming with exploded Oxydol
and rat whiskers
O! I lay down
on a corn husk
and snored an aria
counterpointed with the ocean's hush
in a makeshift jamboree
of the night.
This is a curious entry, and the first thing that struck my mind was the nature of the union of "we". "We" simply disappears. Or does it? Is this mysterious companion the reader? Or perhaps a figment of the narrator's erratic imagination? An indistinct homeless person wandering with the enigmatic lyricist? Whatever the answer (or possible answers) we know this much: people come and go, and you don't have to have viewed a statue to realize the breathtaking possibilities on the horizon.
The next several poems abruptly shift gears, and the reader is tossed into a maelstrom, a veritable broth of churning metaphysical goo. "Hard-Ass Wisdom On Two-Fifty A Pipe" outlines the cultural miscues and misunderstandings involved when a party of three occasional acquaintances get together to celebrate the posthumous release of a K-Tel Rat Pack double DVD, only to discover that pipe tobacco and rabid anti-smokers don't parlay their desire for compromise into a happy Frankie sing-a-long. Important moral and social questions emerge, here, and in the remainder of this powerfully felt and erudite book: does our desire for ingesting chemicals outweigh the importance of campy proximate clubbiness? Do we have the right to be selfish when it endangers others' joy? Is there such an idea as "too much of a good thing"? Dervish doesn't condescend by leading the reader by the nose into a pre-fab confessional, but lets the questions hang like air from residual belches after the guilty one has scarfed the double anchovies pizza with garlic, washed down by a bean sundae.
There are too many other highlights here to properly address without taking away the surprise of what will surely be Dervish's turning point in a long but sporadic career spanning the beginning of MTV through to nerdy Tony Soprano groupies sporting bolo ties.
Buy it. Read it. Live it.
You Knew It Was Coming
It only took a week or so, but voila! the first charge of sexism has been thrust into the fray. (Are Zach Wells and I the only two reviewers who don't know that Chris Banks is a woman?) Of course, no names mentioned, again, of the power-ensconced men (wink, wink), but, hey, a broad brush makes a painting job a lot quicker. Who cares if half-a-can (whoops! sexist overtones on that one!) ends up on six members (strike that last word from the record!) of the family, plus the visiting Mormons, the woman librarian filing her pen-sword, and the matron with hands on hips?
http://lemonhound.blogspot.com/2009/11/shameless-hussys-literary-advice_17.html
"Dear Shameless Hussy,
I have been watching the debate about reviewing in this country with some interest. After reading several posts on the matter I did my own research. What struck me even more than the obvious bias of the reviews..."
Comprehensive evidence, please? Bias in what form and content? By whom, specifically? Which publications are "at fault"? Original works of poetry under review in evidence for a more complete picture of what the male reviewers were working with?
"is the overwhelming number of them being penned by men,"
Comprehensive facts, please? In which publications? Are all of them then included? How many years of statistics? Ratio of men's acceptance-to-rejection in those submitting reviews compared to same in women? (which is more pertinent than total reviews). Percentage of women editors compared to men in totality of journals/publications who make the call for acceptance of submissions? Evidence of all work of all women and all men among both categories (accepted and rejected reviews). Percentage of men who submit compared to women who submit? "Objective" quality of work by men with journal-accepted reviews, arrived at by a numerous group of multinational poets and editors who have written extensively about all the reviewers under study?
"usually from the center and east of it,"
Hmmm .... one of the only two pegged reviewers in the Banks-initiated foofaraw is located west of Vancouver. Since the other has moved back east, that makes it a 50-50 affirmative-action geographically distributed wet-dream. But perhaps LH's persona has included and indicted the other ..... 50? 120? other males hogging the reviewing stage (by obviously nefarious, tribal means). I look forward to seeing those other male reviewers named, and the incriminatory textual evidence put on display. Of course, the only fair thing to do is to have ALL reviews by ALL men entered onto the ledger. Again, I await and expect this minor detail to be affixed, with appropriate and lengthy, well-thought-out commentary by LH included.
"and with distinctly similar tones."
As in B-flats? Which tone is this you speak of? Rage-fueled? Petty? Dismissive? Sleepy? Incorrigible? Marsupial-like? There are so many of these fascinating tones. Which is the distinctive one you mean? Ahh, the vapid vagaries of vagueness ....
As for the rest of the "substance" in this contribution, well, as LH herself likes to say: "I think it speaks for itself". I wonder, though: is there a dress code for women poetry reviewers that isn't being maintained by those same women waiting to break down the walls of ancient Rome? (Martha and the Vandalettes?) Yes, indeed, maybe we have the answer! The tribal authorities just demand dresses of their distaff reviewers! Well, we all knew that men were simple, and easy to please.
http://lemonhound.blogspot.com/2009/11/shameless-hussys-literary-advice_17.html
"Dear Shameless Hussy,
I have been watching the debate about reviewing in this country with some interest. After reading several posts on the matter I did my own research. What struck me even more than the obvious bias of the reviews..."
Comprehensive evidence, please? Bias in what form and content? By whom, specifically? Which publications are "at fault"? Original works of poetry under review in evidence for a more complete picture of what the male reviewers were working with?
"is the overwhelming number of them being penned by men,"
Comprehensive facts, please? In which publications? Are all of them then included? How many years of statistics? Ratio of men's acceptance-to-rejection in those submitting reviews compared to same in women? (which is more pertinent than total reviews). Percentage of women editors compared to men in totality of journals/publications who make the call for acceptance of submissions? Evidence of all work of all women and all men among both categories (accepted and rejected reviews). Percentage of men who submit compared to women who submit? "Objective" quality of work by men with journal-accepted reviews, arrived at by a numerous group of multinational poets and editors who have written extensively about all the reviewers under study?
"usually from the center and east of it,"
Hmmm .... one of the only two pegged reviewers in the Banks-initiated foofaraw is located west of Vancouver. Since the other has moved back east, that makes it a 50-50 affirmative-action geographically distributed wet-dream. But perhaps LH's persona has included and indicted the other ..... 50? 120? other males hogging the reviewing stage (by obviously nefarious, tribal means). I look forward to seeing those other male reviewers named, and the incriminatory textual evidence put on display. Of course, the only fair thing to do is to have ALL reviews by ALL men entered onto the ledger. Again, I await and expect this minor detail to be affixed, with appropriate and lengthy, well-thought-out commentary by LH included.
"and with distinctly similar tones."
As in B-flats? Which tone is this you speak of? Rage-fueled? Petty? Dismissive? Sleepy? Incorrigible? Marsupial-like? There are so many of these fascinating tones. Which is the distinctive one you mean? Ahh, the vapid vagaries of vagueness ....
As for the rest of the "substance" in this contribution, well, as LH herself likes to say: "I think it speaks for itself". I wonder, though: is there a dress code for women poetry reviewers that isn't being maintained by those same women waiting to break down the walls of ancient Rome? (Martha and the Vandalettes?) Yes, indeed, maybe we have the answer! The tribal authorities just demand dresses of their distaff reviewers! Well, we all knew that men were simple, and easy to please.
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