My apologies, then, Alison; apparently I missed the part you had written
[which you give again below]. It's neither dull nor uninformative.
I still fail to see why mentioning a cannibal is racist, though. The quote
qualifies, I suppose, mildly, as what we used to call a 'sick' joke----but
'racist'? Huh? What am I missing?
Judy
2008/10/7 Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>
> On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:48 AM, Judy Prince
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > And further, If folks disagree with Fred's opinion, let them go ahead and
> > give theirs rather than 'red herring' us with 'isms'. If their opinion
> is
> > given as artfully as Fred has given his, then I'm sure it will receive
> due
> > attention.
> >
> I did, and without a whisper of ism anywhere. For the record, this is
> what I wrote, re the Larkin'Lauterbach comparison:
>
> It's a poem about the processes of
> perception and being, and certainly not written without feeling. I've
> read better poems along these lines, attempting to honestly delineate
> the complex ephemerality of a moment - Ashbery comes to mind and even
> more, Rilke - but I hardly think it's "really really really terrible",
> nor does it strike me as that breathy kind of fake poetic Frederick
> claims it demonstrates. It strikes me that while Lauterbach's poem is
> about entering the specifics of a moment (eternity perhaps in
> Spinoza's sense, ie some kind of immanence), Larkin's is about
> transcendence, the absorption into a sublime whole. Totally different
> poetic consciousnesses. Not sure that it's useful to use one to bash
> the other.
>
> Perhaps it was a dull and uninformative post, but it did, at least,
> talk about the poem.
>
> > Still further, and for Alison, the cannibal and ventilator quotes that
> > Kasper contributed are neither racist nor sexist---though perhaps
> > animalist---and they're hilarious.
> >
> Shorn of its context, which might perhaps be mitigating, the cannibal
> quote is most certainly racist, if being racist is a term meaning
> expressive of a racist attitude. It's the kind of thing I used to hear
> from my mother's associates who campaigned for Apartheid. If it's
> funny (I can't see how) that doesn't exclude it being racist.
>
> xA
> > Best,
> >
> > Judy
> >
> >
> > 2008/10/7 Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]>
> >
> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alison Croggon" <
> [log in to unmask]>
> >> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> >> Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 8:23 AM
> >> Subject: Re: 2 poems
> >>
> >>
> >> You know, the funny thing is that I could let Frederick's obvious
> >>> sexism go by without a ruffle (and it's not for me to arbitrate,
> >>> anyway) - but Kasper, this is a horrible and utterly racist quotation.
> >>> And damn the accusations of PC, which are often just lazy defences of
> >>> lazy bigotries.
> >>>
> >>>
> >> For the record, I absolutely deny sexism, "obvious" or otherwise.
> >> Including "sexist" intent in my original phrase "meaty masterpiece."
> The
> >> kind of reasoning Barry Alpert showed in a) calling ME sexist because
> that
> >> phrase struck HIM as sexist, as well as b) intimating that La Auerbach
> is
> >> beyond attack because she has garnered po-biz and academic honors, is
> not to
> >> be tolerated. But the bleating of a herd of PC-liberals is as little
> >> susceptible to argument as a swarm of rightists. I will NOT get into an
> >> IDIOTIC pseudo-controversy of this sort, which always results in someone
> >> leaving the list in a self-righteous huff. I'll just go back to my
> usual
> >> lurking state.
> >>
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>
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