David,
I don't have any problem with your comments upon my translations, the exclamation points, or whatever, and am happy to consider them along with anything else. I also don't have a problem with being personal, have told a personal story or two, have made several jokes, and am in the vernacular with several people on the list. I don't care what the real story is with Alison, I don't care what's your hearing back channel, I just want this sort of remark, "I'm afraid I don't know what the hell
Alison's
problem is, it is she who keeps writing to me, up front or back, and I
just
respond."
to stop. She wrote to you a post in reply to the discussion about my translations yesterday and you took it for an invitation to reopen this entire subject. So here we are again. In how many languages can one say "stop".
Best,
Rebecca
Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com
Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com
-------Original Message-------
From: "david.bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 04/20/03 11:41 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: To David Bircumshaw
>
> Rebecca
I find this post a matter of personal harassment. As I quite clearly said,
the question about exclamation marks was a practical one. I do feel a
certain ironic amusement that someone who has a magazine named after a
poem
by Rimbaud and translates Vallejo constantly makes prim statements about
the
undesirability of the personal, such attitudes wouldn't have lasted five
minutes with either of them. I'm afraid I don't know what the hell
Alison's
problem is, it is she who keeps writing to me, up front or back, and I
just
respond. She initiated and maintained the friendship and for a long time
it
was very warm and supportive now its turned horrible. Being accused of
being
a stalker is awful and I'm appalled that such calumny can go without
remark.
I've never acted with slightest impropriety towards her and my 'unwanted
attentions' are a matter of fiction. I don't like writing about any of
this
but I am forced to do so by the repeated libels you are casting on my
name.
And as for back-channel comments, well, here's an example, from someone
who
feels intimidated by the bullying on this list from saying anything
up-front, I won't give a name:
>Laughable, if it weren't so sad... The hypocrisy of it... Slandered by
people who, when it suits them, feign outrage at the merest hint of
defamation in other contexts...
And really admirable... Your soldiering through it all... Actually
sticking
with them...
They don't deserve you, Dave... Your wit and warmth... <
I could publish other back-channel remarks of an even more revealing kind,
but won't. Suffice to say some people are damaging their reputations by
the
way they are acting towards me, without any action being taken on my part.
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
<a target=_blank
href="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm">http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm</a>
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rebecca Seiferle" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 3:51 PM
Subject: Re: To David Bircumshaw
David,
I think your post to what had been a discussion about my Vallejo
translations and the desirability of translating the exclamation marks was
very personal. Mark seemed to note this as well when in response to that
post, he made a point of turning the discussion away from the personal.
It's true that it was framed in jokes, but framing unwanted personal
attention in the lightest and most humorous of terms does not make it any
less of a harassment to the one who does not want that personal attention
and who has repeatedly and as bluntly as possible asked that you stop. You
seem to think that as long as you are hassling someone while you're in a
good mood, it's not hassling someone.
However, I think the deciding factor is how the person being hassled
feels,
which is often rather desperate and embarrassed and constrained. I am also
commenting upon this as your remarks about me veered toward the personal,
suggesting that poetryetc had become rebeccaetc. How am I supposed to
reply
to that? I think your appeal to 'common humanity' is related to that
older
usage of saying "well, I'm only human," the excuse that was often used by
men to justify their continuing and unwanted attentions and actions toward
women who were not interested.
It doesn't seem to be connected to a sense of common courtesy and respect,
since even at the most minimal level, if someone has said, please stop,
one
would do so out of any sense of common humanity and courtesy and respect.
I
don 't know how much more clearly Alison could have posted on this. And
yet
you continue to ignore it. It is true that you have posted poems, as we
all
have, but it's only been a week, and you are once again posting this sort
of
unwanted personal attentions.
I am also tired of you suggesting that there is so much more going on back
channel that we are unaware of, and which gives you the justification to
persist in this, whether it is your leagues of women friends that find you
unsexist, or whether it is your "personal and practical" matters that you
have with Alison. It seems to me of the nature of innuendo and gossip.
Furthermore your accounts are probably self-serving, having learned to
read
through your posts on this, I suspect that in point 2 you are describing
your 'gentle responses' to Alison's having lost her temper and told you
off.
As for back channelling on this, I have back channelled you on this and
tried to appeal to you to just stop. As have others.
A refusal to hear what the other person, group, nation is saying, a
refusal
to respect and heed the other's wishes, a refusal to not hassle, invade,
transgress, to not hear when one is telling you so clearly to stop. That
is
the ill that rules the world at the moment.
Rebecca
Rebecca Seiferle
<a target=_blank
href="http://www.thedrunkenboat.com">www.thedrunkenboat.com</a>
-------Original Message-------
From: "david.bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 04/20/03 09:05 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: To David Bircumshaw
>
> Phew, Randolph!
Point 1 - this is something that should have gone back-channel. Point 2 -
I
have assured Alison that I will write to her only if she directly
addresses
me, which was has happened both front and back-channel, nothing has been
initiated by me, the back-channel messages in particular have been gentle
in
tone and only in response to some rather unwelcome messages from her, I'm
sorry to say that, but it's the truth, the recent post that has seemed to
have caused a problem was a good-humoured piece about exclamation marks,
it
was couched in jokes as is obvious to see. Point 3 - there does seem to be
a
problem about tonality on this list, I've talked about this several times,
both in terms of e-mail texture and linguistic worlds, a sense of humour
seems to be an endangered species here. Point 4 - I am saddened that
denial
of common humanity is being touted as a modus vivendi, the
quasi-legalistic
and morally censorious language that is becoming the apex of the list's
status systems is depressing in the extreme. Point 5 - I have posted poem
after poem and have consistently sought to talk about poetics. Point 6 - a
separation of public and private speech is the rhetorical basis for the
ills
that happen in this world.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
<a
target=_blank
href="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm">http://homepa
ge.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm</a>
----- Original Message -----
From: "wildhoney" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 9:15 AM
Subject: To David Bircumshaw
Dear David,
Given the serious complaints Alison has made against you, I
previously asked that you do not respond or refer to her in your
posts to PoetryEtc in an uninvited, personal fashion. I am saddened
that you have decided not to co-operate in this, despite the fact
that Alison's discomfort at this practice is so great that she has
already had to take a break from the list. Not only this, but I
understand that you are sending her unwelcome back-channel messages.
I feel I must make it a condition of your continued membership there
are no more such instances. It's up to you.
Randolph
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