Hallo Randolph

This is the second time I have been called "strangely legalistic". The first
time was when I was helping a friend being bullied by her manager. I went as
her rep and asked him why he was making her do silly things. He said "It's
in the sickness code." I asked him where in the sickness and he declined to
tell me. When I presed him and asked for any justification, even indirect,
for his actions in his own code, which he was using to sanction himself, he
said "Your attitude is strangely legalistic"

I didn't feel bullied by the posting, but I did think it was bollocks. And
that surprised me - not my reaction, but that the posting had come from
Chris Emery.

The quotations made in support of the poets listed did not seem to me to
justify the assertions being made. There were assertions and there were
quotations. They were not connected at all well. I found the assertions
hyperbolic. Nothing to do with powdered wigs Randolph. Yes, people were left
to make up their own minds; and nothing I said could in any way have
inhibited that process. I doubt I even influenced anyone, a good reason for
not going on at length. The other reason was time and energy. Lack of.

It is the hyperbole of "and should be compulsory reading for anyone who
wants to understand modern western culture" which made me explode "Gawd"...
I could have said more; I could have explained, but as a Lee Marvin
character once remarked, before he died, "I don't have the time" & reading
those quotations brought on me a weariness presaging death

L:
-----Original Message-----
From: L. MacMahon and T.R. Healy <[log in to unmask]>
To: British poets <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 22 May 1999 07:21
Subject: Re: Our Finest / exclusive plurality


that it was assertion, not
|argument, despite the fact that he quoted generously, allowing the reader
|to come to their own decision, was strangely legalistic. Where did all
|these powdered wigs come from? Said critic, Lawrence Upton then allowed
|_himself_ the liberty of quoting a line from a poet and responding simply
|"gawd". Now I'm all for this approach, and many other approaches, but felt
|it it to be unfair in a post charging someone with assertion. Can you
|really have the cake and the ha'penny too if you're asserting that someone
|else can't?








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