Alison Croggon writes:
<<Come come, Joseph: perhaps I can be allowed the other colloquial
meaning of ragbag to and fro conversation, especially with email.>>
I can't help but take "come, come" above as at least a mild rebuke,
but none is warranted. In any event, I wasn't criticizing your
usage, or Dominic's original use of the word--just wondering if I
had actual "lost it" in this case. I was genuinely perplexed. My
review of the thread shows Dom asking a question, David Latane
responding, and then some others joining in with posts about Rich,
Rukeyser, etc. The whole thread is framed, I suppose, by the
controversy over the silencing of women poets by editors, whether
intentional or unintentional. I was in fact surprised that no one
picked up on Dom's "defense" of Silkin in his follow-up post. That
might have led to something like what I would call an argument.
Perhaps I am overly concerned with usage.
<<Eclipse rather than erasure is a better metaphor, but there's no
doubt the eclipse existed; and if even feminists say (as in the
introduction to her Selected Poems) that her eclipse was due to the
birth of her son, which inevitably meant her decline as a poet, and
that Rukeyser's denial of that was just typical of the way mothers
erase the truth about child rearing, what is there to say? (That
introduction, btw, made me very angry). Of course her gender played
a part.>>
It has been said that when leftists make a firing squad they form a
circle--the same might be said of feminists, in this case.
jd
======================
Joseph Duemer
School of Liberal Arts, box 5750
Clarkson University
Potsdam NY 13699
315.268.3967
[log in to unmask]
http://web.northnet.org/duemer
http://www.grammarbitch.com/ppp/index.html
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Through the loop
of the rusted padlock
a blade of green
. . .
In the bed
of a rusted war truck
the farmer begins his rice
[John Brandi, from Stone Garland, 1999]
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