Yes, what I am saying is apparently so startling that it can not be understood. I am saying that the person who wrote this -- and meant it -- shouldn’t be taken seriously.
“I don’t know of any other male poet today who has written about scuncis-- recognized them as integral to the texture of our lives.”
This is typical.
You will see that William Butler Yeats agrees with me -- if you listen to “A Simple Desultory Philippic.” Here: http://thejeunessedoree.libsyn.com/
Yet, here, and in my private correspondence with Rachel, I expand on my comments. There’s nothing that I wrote to her (with the exception of a poem I sent indicating my encounter with the comic grotesque) that I haven’t written here.
I have been very explicit. My remarks go way beyond the grotesqueness of the Silliman perplex.
Maybe if I am very specific once again, it will be possible to see that my initial melancholy was caused by more than by the fact that a dull remark by Silliman was taken seriously.
I am told that “Jacket” is quite the thing. So I am depressed when I encounter 80 pages of low level blathering and resentment and personal anecdote, and the usual attacks, and awful pictures, and what seems to me essentially the kind of nightmare conversation I would encounter if I was forced to listen to Adorno clones discuss jazz. Ok, that’s not exactly right. The Adorno clones would possess a mad but learned rigor not available there. Ok, so my impression is of various MFA students circa 1992 possessed by Adorno clones. 80 pages of bloggery. I indicated that this is depressing -- and wondered what would happen if Jacket were a print publication and had to pay for those 80 pages. Maybe we would get an essay of the good old sort by someone there. Maybe I just miss Hugh Kenner.
Maybe I am very tired of the Usual Suspects. Did I write this? Yes, I did. Was I understood? No, I was not understood.
Jacket is, I am told, the World! Seems like a small room in Hell to me. The endless same. The Eternal Return of the Same.
Which is, exactly, what poetry is not.
Then I learn that this has been a year in the making. Hence my despair.
Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I agree wholeheartedly with Rachel's sentiments.
Joe, your antipathy towards Ron is well-documented and I find your
interventions against Ron Silliman rather lacking in civility which is
a shame as I think what we do deserves better. One unintended
consequence of your intervention this time is that I shall go back and
re-read the article in question.
I have to admit though that my humour gene is missing, and I've been
trying to find it for a while now.
Roger
On 7/10/07, Rachel Loden wrote:
> Thanks, Doug--I appreciate that. And thanks to Ken for his apology. I didn't
> see it before I wrote my somewhat tetchy reply.
>
> Joe, I mostly can't make head or tail of what you're saying, esp. in the
> last message, except that you think it would be best not to take Ron
> Silliman seriously. I simply don't agree with this.
>
> But am going to bow out of the kerfuffle now. Sorry to take so long to
> reply--family just in from Finland and it's very busy here.
>
> Rachel
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics
> > [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Douglas Barbour
> > Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 7:24 AM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: a roundtable discussion on humor in poetry at
> > jacket magazine
> >
> > It's going to take me some time to get through it all, Rachel
> > (but then
> > I did see that it took a long time to write it all). but I
> > can sort of
> > understand both Ken's first response AND his apology. I don't get
> > Joe's, as if he didn't like it he could just stop reading. I
> > certainly
> > don't agree with everyone, as they don't agree with each other, but
> > there's a lot of interest there for someone who just can't seem to
> > write comic poetry that works (& continues to admire yours,
> > which does;
> > I particularly said yes to the comments on black comedy, the
> > horror/comedy connect.
> >
> > Doug
> > On 8-Jul-07, at 8:14 PM, Rachel Loden wrote:
> >
> > > Ken wrote:
> > >
> > >> what
> > >> depresses me
> > >> here is the expanse of what apparently is leisure time to admit
> > >> philosophies of comedy into a world that includes call
> > >> centers, WalMart,
> > >> and eminent domain.
> > >
> > > Which world should we have chosen then? The one with call centers,
> > > WalMart,
> > > and eminent domain seems to be the only game in town.
> > >
> > > As for leisure time (forgive me while I stop laughing): the
> > > conversation
> > > took place over the better part of a year, with people posting in
> > > between
> > > their various duties.
> > >
> > > It'll be lovely when (and I guess if ) people actually
> > grapple with the
> > > ideas under discussion.
> > >
> > > Rachel
> > >
> > >
> > Douglas Barbour
> > 11655 - 72 Avenue NW
> > Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
> > (780) 436 3320
> > http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> >
> > Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> > http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
> >
> >
> > You may allow me moments
> > not monuments, I being
> > content. It is little,
> > but it is little enough.
> >
> > John Newlove
> >
>
--
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons."
Roman Proverb
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