Candice I read Philip's review and found that although he spends a moment or
two situating Kinsella's poetry within the Australian literary and political
context and a little on what used to be known as the "Paper Wars" the
Anglo/American cultural debate, a great deal of his review actually focuses
on the work, and in that respect it is helpful as it includes a long
quotation and an analysis of the technique:
A part of Kinsella's apparent intention is to destabilize the reading
process, to yank firm ground from under it. The erudite poet is well tuned
in to current Anglo- and Francophone literary theory. Whether or not one
agrees with the poststructuralist, skeptical schools of thought, it is
interesting to observe their feedback as practicing poets use them in
constructing their own aesthetics. Kinsella's Genre, dedicated to Jaques
Derrida, may be seen as an aesthetic validation of deconstruction. It is in
a genre beyond genres: not a forest of symbols, nor even of floating
signifiers, but a glowing fusion of discourses, prosaic and poetic,
literary and critical, authored and "found," comprising a large but finite
number of plots and ideas, all wedged and twisted into a labyrinthine
structure, chopped up and rejoined by way of fragmentation and montage, all
interrupted and resuming in cycles, but retaining an intelligible pace
throughout the volume, some reaching a moment of closure and some not. The
graphic presentation is important: the whole work consists of lines
identical length, about two thirds of the page width, and without a single
line or paragraph break – an almost perfect rectangular solid of text.
I do not see this as being "ethically dubious". Philip did review one work ,
whereas in your case you had to cover a much greater territory (three
collections) which meant that inevitably you were reduced to use another
medias' parlance, to soundbites, for example "zany Muldoonian charm ". I
would however in fairness say that both reviews were informative, and had
different goals in mind, and could not be said to be in competition. One can
PROFIT from reading both reviews.
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