Jeffrey (and of course interested others),
I've been enjoying your googleable interview with Marjorie Perloff for
Poetry Salzburg Review:
http://marjorieperloff.com/interviews/salzburg-interview/
Her analyses, opinions, conclusions, and pointings-out, never disappoint.
And you were a fine set-upper for her. For example, I rather liked
her building a positive-spin, negative answer to your: "Do you think
the foregrounding of form may be one of the reasons why much
experimental poetry is perceived as dull?"
Further, you chase her comfortably out into another open (mine)field,
asking which are better poetry-reviewers, poets or academics? Her
answer: ". . . (S)ome poets are much better reviewers than comparable
academic critics. ...... "But on the whole, poets-as-reviewers are too
biased; they have their agenda."..... "Ideally, the, editors would
choose reviewers (whether poets or academics) who are disinterested,
who have nothing to gain from praising or blaming X or Y. Poetry
reviews, though, are mostly just puffs. . . . One would think each
poet reviewed were a genius!"
She says that Clive James' NYTBR review of Elias Canetti's The Part In
The Blitz (which she'd reviewed for Bookforum and found "fascinating")
was "almost libelous", describing James as "the notoriously snide,
clever British (originally Australian) Clive James."
Now to musings I'd enjoy your reactions to. I'm a USAmerican only
recently spending half-years in England, and one of many happy
surprises is finding that UKers seem far less conformist than
USAmericans, as well as far less "polite". Journalists in particular
seem to be loose cannons on deck in even the most staid print media.
I love it!
I wonder if Marjorie Perloff (born in Vienna, emigrating to the USA at
age 6 1/2) may've been reflecting a USAmerican bias against what seem
to be "rogue" writers when she objected to Clive James's review.
(I've read neither his nor her review, so have no opinion on them.)
A somewhat related (to UK-USA attitudes) issue: In the Grauniad, I
read the commenters on today's article about Oxford U's new schedule
for the nomination for the post of Professor of Poetry. At first I
despaired of any braincell in the commenters, but then realised that,
as so often with those unruly folk, they had homed into a criticism of
a major contender, Anne Stevenson.
Seems that Stevenson made what sounded like a mistake about the OU POP
election: "I have always (probably naively) assumed that the
professorship of poetry at Oxford was an honour that a poet was asked
to accept." Oh, oops--- there's a vote, an actual election, Anne!
Now the Groan's bumptious commenters are off and howling---whilst
Proper Feminists carve the wood for her poetry chair. Like it or not,
as with the last election, the USA and Canada will strongly influence
outcomes.
My own vote, of course, would be for Stephen Moss, Guardian's own.
Best,
Judy
--
Frisky Moll Press: http://judithprince.com/home.html
"I can't read my library card." ---Jeff Hecker, Norfolk, VA
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