In a message dated 10/2/2006 7:02:04 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

This  thread seems very unfair to Sheila E. Murphy.  I'm _not_ against  
negative criticism. But there has to be some foundation in the text. You  
haven't a single word to say, good or bad, _about_ any of the text. This  
might have been an interesting general argument. But you singled out a  
particular writer, then moved into zones like "author's neediness" and  
"wastebasket" as a valuable instrument without quoting a syllable from the  
named author. And a line like " I don't know that this is case, in this  
case." doesn't magically make what you're saying objective. I  object.
 
Randolph, 
You're certainly right to get after me here. I did, I thought, try to  turn 
the focus
away from a particular author (Murphy, in this case). I didn't  specifically
name her in my second post. Because I don't know diddly about her  particular 
motivations 
or psychic impulses when it comes to the amount of published material that,  
I 
perceive, she is producing. She certainly doesn't need my approval, as it's  
anyone's 
right to give us volume upon volume if he/she so chooses. But the  question 
remains,
for me, what drives the need of some authors to publish so much, in so many  
places?
 
Pierre Joris, who well translated the somewhat word-stingy  Celan, rattled 
off a host of 
well-known authors with bloated corpora...writers who don't write 'diet  
books', shall we
say. How much Corman (didn't he publish quite a bit with his own  press, 
Origin?), how 
much Kelly (he seemed to slow done after Black Sparrow hit a pane), or how  
many pages of Joris will be in print a hundred years hence...who knows?  
(Heidegger's pretty safe at this point...but 100 volunes, good god, I'm  still 
slogging thru a few of his key works.) But even OP  doesn't really matter any 
more...since it's almost impossible to be OM, or  out of memory, in these digital 
times. Books are so 20th Century; our  local library is primarily housed in a 
server farm located in outskirts of Kuala  Lumpur. Alas, to last, a text must 
ruthlessly insinuate time.
 
I suggested there might be a neediness at play...but there might be other  
factors
at work which could be seen in a more favorable light. If a  writer actually 
sells some
books, it may be simply income that prompts book upon book. By  temperament, 
I guess,
I favor some self-restraint, more selectivity...by nature I suspect  
voluminous output
of carrying within the corpus much that could be done withoot. Just playing  
Jonson re
Shakespeare, 'would that he blotted a thousand (lines)'. Who was it that  
retorted,
Which thousand? And then there was ol' Doc Johnson who complained of  Milton's
magnum opus, 'None wished it longer'. But as the famous Chet Baker  song goes,
Let's Get Lost...
 
There is no right answer, of course, to 'How much one should write or  
publish?' I do 
think one's age should be measured against the length of one's  bibliography. 
And 
I don't count books published posthumously, because many of those are based 
on the needs of scholars, a publisher's or a legatee's greed, or the  way 
literary reputation eventually dredges up every last drunken cocktail  napkin 
scrawl. Recently the 'last Frost poem' was discovered as an  inscription in a 
book sent to Edward Thomas...and announced with all  do hoopla. Not to say that 
particular scrap of a sonnet was not of literary  interest. 
And I don't mean to suggest that poets should sew their handwritten  sheaves 
into tidy fascicles and then request these bundles of one's life  work be 
burned upon one's death...not a very good idea.
Finnegan