Good morning!
I'm about to reopen the list and will shortly post the Featured Poet
selection of poems by Matthew Francis. Feel free to plunge right into a
discussion of them, and I'll be back later with the interview segment. I'll
be starting off by gesturing back toward the New Formalists thread that we'd
begun and which has an obvious bearing on the question of Matthew's
positioning relative to both New Formalism and postmodernism. If you wanted
to take up that question before we hear from him about how he sees his work
in relation to these movements, that would be great--but I don't want to get
too schoolmarmy here and sound as if I'm assigning a topic ("Discuss"). Say
whatever the poems prompt you to say, by all means.
If you can hold off on raising other issues--those of you who wish to--until
after people have had a chance to give Matthew some feedback, I'd really
appreciate it. And thanks, too, for hanging in here with me these last few
days. All I want to say about that is by way of clarification on the "public
space" vs. "censorship" issue. This is not a public list, but a private one,
and discussions are not moderated, much less subject to censorship.
Subscription is "by owner," which is to say, by invitation, although people
generally come knocking at the Poetryetc door and then are invited in. After
that, the usual conventions of sociality, including civility obviously, come
into play. You know all this, and you are not the source of the problems
we've experienced recently. But please keep in mind that, given all of the
above, forwarding posts to a private discussion list from nonsubscribers,
especially those who have been shown the door, is less than mannerly. Please
don't do it.
Thanks,
Candice
