Interesting comments on an intriguing text--and I think you're right, Fred,
about the reader's degree of engagement with it turning at least somewhat on
authorial commitment to its own lines of engagement, however defined
(post/modernist being one such set of choices).
And your point about overtly inviting feedback via the subject line is a
good one, too--let's all try to use some such signal that a response is
wanted.
Thanks--Candice
> Frederick Pollack wrote:
>>
>> This is engaging and promising. Some passages are fussy, unnecessary,
>> self-conscious and/or coy. "{left one out! Lowers grade! Test
>> anxiety}," "(like stray cats in alleys, which can sound like babies
>> crying)," and "(long deep intake of air; exhales audibly; expressive of
>> weariness)" are examples. Dropping the last of these, you could
>> condense the line thus: "She sighs, her facial expression a mother's at
>> a child's" etc. In the same stanza, "(Wha'?!")" falls flat. Earlier,,
>> how about: "a fine time to see // a girl spirit // transfixed, watching
>> wheels" etc. - thereby eliminating the retardative duplicated subject
>> and adding a pleasant ambiguity. "Heavy lightning" is good, and the
>> overall idea is good.
>>
>> I like your idea of adding the phrase "(feedback requested)" to the
>> subject line. Had I done so I might have received more responses to
>> "The Earthly Paradise," "The Patriot," and other poems I've sent.
>
>
> Let me add, more generally, that I think you must decide whether you
> want to proceed in a modernist way, emphasizing myth and narrative
> (however ironized); or in a postmodernist way, emphasizing authorial
> intervention and the constructedness of narrative. The latter, I think,
> quickly becomes tedious, but some people like it. Indecision on this
> point produces an effect of coyness.
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