Gabe, let me echo Kasper: a clear and humane reading.
jd
On Jan 27, 2008 5:23 AM, kasper salonen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Gabriel,
>
> thanks so much for this! I've never been able to get a very neutral
> opinion on the Silliman blog on this list, since here it seems to be
> fairly broadly lauded -- but my brief encounters with it have produced
> feelings identical to yours. cultural/social capital is one of the
> blog's overwhelming characteristics indeed, to me. it appears to speak
> to poetry & not to the readers & writers of poetry, & what's the good
> in that?
>
> your eloquence (rhetoric) is also appreciated & enjoyed.
>
> KS
>
> On 27/01/2008, Gabriel Gudding <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > Kasper,
> >
> > Sorry I missed your question.
> >
> > You ask what I think of Ron's blog.
> >
> > Well, I think it's a good example of literary violence -- and of someone
> > who is very very obedient to the illusion of literature and deeply
> > invested in: (a) consecration, (b) canon making, (c) pigeon-holing, (d)
> > distinctions, and (e) the dream of judgment.
> >
> > In other words, it's a good example of fetish. Belief in literature.
> >
> > Too, I guess in some ways Ron's blog is a machine of capital (not fiscal
> > but symbolic), whose purpose is to accrue as much cultural capital as
> > possible -- to in fact monopolize, or at least corner the market on, a
> > set of symbolic goods.
> >
> > So in short it's business as usual. Even tho Ron will say he doesn't
> > believe in individual authors, he still basically follows the New
> > Critical m.o. for establishing author function by (a) authorial
> > celebration, (b) apodictic tone (assertion parading as demonstration),
> > (c) divisive rhetoric (dismissive or conciliatory), (d) obsessive
> > concern about what will stand "the test of time" -- and probably the
> > thing that most anchors Ron as a grandchild of New Criticism: (e) the
> > ritualistic "close reading" (pretending to focus on "form" and "craft"
> > as a means of carrying out an attempt to consecrate or dismiss).
> >
> > Another way of putting it: Ron's blog is a giant mechanism whose purpose
> > is to create, if absent, and anchor, if present, belief. Belief in
> > distinctions -- rather than awareness of relations.
> >
> > Or another way to think of it is: The enactment of orthodoxy by a former
> > heretic.
> >
> > If Ron's blog were a religion, it would be Mormonism.
> >
> > Or. The enactment of a doxological illusion common to literature: the
> > belief that one can locate somewhere in the field of polemics or
> > celebration something upon which one can never exhaust the urge to
> > fetishize. Olson? Creeley? Dickinson? Barbour? Ballardini?
> >
> > Ron's blog is a hunt for that inexhaustible object/author.
> >
> > So, that's what I think of Ron's blog. What I think of Ron himself, or
> > what he presents of himself on his blog and in his work, is that he's a
> > good Joe who's maybe a little too enamored with the illusion of "poetry"
> > and who maybe needs to read Bourdieu. :)
> >
> > Poetry really is about human beings. It's not about poetry.
> >
> > Sorry if this is a bit too much information, Kasper.
> >
> > Gabe
> > http://gabrielgudding.blogspot.com/
> > http://rhodeislandnotebook.blogspot.com/
> >
> > <<oh. I was asking Gabe what *he* thinks of Silliman's blog. if his poem
> > is a nightmare or absurd dream or true reflection.
> >
> > KS>>
> >
>
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
[sharpsand.net]
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