AH, well, Lawrence: many more, eh?

I can see a series of such 'portraits' as cumulatively interesting, & more so in the accumulation. My thought on its traf qualities had t do with the more or less standard line length, & the narrative quality.

Also, an innovation for oneself might look not so much so to oner who sees that as a specific given method.

When writing a rejection, one should try to be clear & coherent...

Doug
On 2011-08-30, at 2:06 AM, Lawrence Upton wrote:

> Lots of interesting points here, Doug. Well, points.
> 
> I think of everything I do as *being in a tradition(s)
> 
> I hadn't thought of this as theatre, but i am content with that.
> 
> I write lots of stuff something like this. I have a catch all title of
> _Portraits_, and this could well fit in there. It's more a portrait than a
> snap but I presented is a snap to fit. it's not not a snap!
> 
> I offered a whole pile of portraits to a very innovative publisher a while
> back and it rejected it because there was, i believe this is it, no
> innovation. I couldn't really tell what the problem was because the
> rejection letter was so incoherent. (I was interested to note that a
> devoted self-proclaimed innovator could not express themselves clearly.)
> There was also, I detected, some embarrassment.
> 
> I was already glad because there were a number of really infelicitous
> poems there - together with lots of innovation of a quiet kind - and I had
> regretted submitting it.
> 
> I suppose I'm asking questions. The starting point of the poem was that
> first line which was taken unchanged from a posting on another list. In
> context it was even more bizarre, and posing.
> 
> I don't know the person that well, and demoted them there and then on my
> list of people to get to know. Instead, I set about portraiting (There I
> go again using the language innovatively).... portraying, speculatively a
> person who could say such a thing
> 
> It was a way of dealing with my anger at the person who had been posturing
> politically
> 
> The only snap bit of it, truly, was done with a mouse and cut and paste on
> that first line. The rest was photoshop
> 
> 
> Lawrence

Douglas Barbour
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It is natural to speak of your own weaknesses so winsomely they will seem strengths, as if everyone else is inadequate if they do not have your inadequacies.

		William H. Gass