 |
 |
Iain (&, partly, Rebecca): I said my review was intemperate. I do not regard that as an apology, merely a statement of fact. Had I thought the review needed apologizing for I would have changed it or withdrawn it. (I've done this once, incidentally, where I attacked someone for something I thought they'd said, only to have it proved categorically that I had got it wrong - on an issue of fact, rather than opinion.) I was moved to intemperance by my extreme impatience with the imbalance between reputation and execution in both the books reviewed. My views of the two books have not changed one iota. I still think the Mulddon book execrable. I'm sorry you find the word offensive, Iain, but that's your prerogative. I'm not a poet, by the way, so I'm not offending a fellow-poet here; perhaps you find that worse? My throwaway line about him not being bothered by my comments was surely accurate? Someone who's just won the Pulitzer, the Griffin, the PBS Choice and has been shortlisted for the Forward, plus garnered positive reviews in most if not all the journals where poetry books are reviewed, is not going to be bothered about an attack from a small one-man journal like mine. The weight is all of the other side, I would have thought. I accept there may be an alternative view of the first poem in Duhig's book, as there manifestly are regarding Muldoon's. I still find it a formulaic list-poem that depends for its impact upon audience recognition of a series of period amusements - exactly the kind of thing I hear done to death at readings, and always, always, successfully. Hence my comments, by which I continue to stand. Tony Frazer