tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096739.post253582320976756750..comments2023-11-03T06:31:07.882-04:00Comments on Cahiers de Corey: On a SundayAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06846875103765617419noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096739.post-54949406349094286092010-07-21T21:09:08.838-04:002010-07-21T21:09:08.838-04:00thinksthinkshemahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16615072010191963719noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096739.post-90316395757703986182010-07-21T05:38:23.669-04:002010-07-21T05:38:23.669-04:00The one identical principle across the board on th...The one identical principle across the board on the many poetry boards I have written on, is a sort of unspoken understanding, or shared belief by the members, that their little corner of Cyberville, is where 'the best' most 'real' human-poets gather. This is an exaggeration of course, but the point it makes is that wherever you go, there are mores and modes particular to the individual boards. <br /><br />From the Sphere and Sonnet Central, across to the mistitled (UK) Poets on Fire gaffe, BritPo and Poetryetc jiscmail lists, Guardian books blog, Poetry Foundation of America's Harriet (before it shut down), London's Magma, and most other places with serious poetic pretentions [including most poets' blogs, which have Comment Moderation turned on, except (tellingly) - George Szirtes]: there's no tolerance of the 'other's poetic; usually by subtle strategies of a collective mocking of the Avants (as at Poets on Fire) or the Straights (as at jiscmail poetryetc & britpo), the boards become little hermetically sealed countries, like N Korea, that resist and censor by non-admittance, opinions and realities outside their own narrow world-view, which eventually lead to the poetic stagnation that occurs when everyone is in agreement with how fabtastic we are - bcuz there's no one around to speak differently, bcuz the 'other's have all been demonized and not let in, or slung off with a theatrical flourish, for the same old bollocks of 'not respecting' the admin's 'authority', as a dreamer practicing in the realm of fantasy. Absurd and wholly comedic. The one thing a poet must posses to write anything of themself and original, is a healthy disrespect for the poetic 'authorities', the majority of whom, would not piss on us if we were on fire.<br /><br />It's usually insidious, the owning entity will put themself up - with no qualification other than a desire to own and control a chat-gaffe - as the last word on democratic adminstration, inflating ourselves as keepers of the peace and in the process, slowly strangle all poetic views that do not reflect our own (as Jane Holland, Pepple, Nichols and Halley at Harriet and the jiscmail poetryetc owners did), which leads to a state of affairs where people do not speak contrary, for fear of getting banned, from a fucking chat gaffe in cyberspace!! Proving only how bourgeois and socially homogenizing the activity of online poetry writing, can be.<br /><br />That's why there should always be opposing voices in the one space, because once we start trimming out the ones we do not agree with, it leads to what there is now at all these gaffes. Zero chat, even tho the cohorts there are most of those in po-biz who have an online presence.Desmond Swordshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08510948482448985966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096739.post-61720694479455026282010-07-19T18:16:04.709-04:002010-07-19T18:16:04.709-04:00I wrote:
>its author has conveniently used Fac...I wrote:<br /><br />>its author has conveniently used Facebook's gatekeeping functions to keep me from seeing it (and thus potentially commenting on it)... <br /><br />I could have put that better. I certainly don't mean that the author in question had ME in mind in using Facebook(!), rather that the use of Facebook seems to have become, in part, a kind of convenient cordon sanitaire for the regulation of debate and discourse.Kent Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15233688630151467658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096739.post-88717951245524683282010-07-19T17:46:37.522-04:002010-07-19T17:46:37.522-04:00Josh, I hope you won't mind this longish comme...Josh, I hope you won't mind this longish comment. But regarding the drift of poetry discussion to Facebook and how that medium's functions can be used to "gatekeep" exchange and debate, I thought I'd share this:<br /><br />A couple weeks ago I wrote one of the presenters from the "Rethinking Poetics" conference (a prominent and smart man with whom I've had some public disagreement in the past), telling him that I was very interested in seeing his much-referenced essay from the gathering, that I had, as he knew, a keen interest in a-g theory and its applications to the state of current post-avant poetry, etc. I explained to him that I did not have a Facebook page (nor had any desire for one) and thus was unable to access the text of his presentation. Would he be so kind as to send it to me in a file so I might consider his argument? <br /><br />He wrote back that No, he would rather not do so, as he was convinced that any "Bordeauvian" [sic] like me "who took Distinction seriously would never find much of interest in it." <br /><br />I wrote back expressing my surprise at such response, saying, <br /><br />"Says who? In any case, Bourdieu's cultural field theory is what's most interesting to me. Not that he would countenance such a "distinction"... But you know, the heuristic usefulness of historical materialism, for example, isn't necessarily contingent on the labor theory of value."<br /><br />That was probably a little hermetic on my part, but truly, I was in a state of real bemusement! <br /><br />He then wrote back right away, saying that I had indeed endorsed PB's Distinction "about a thousand times, en route to dismissing any number of serious (and not so serious) left positions as mere position taking." No, he continued, he *knew* his Rethinking Poetics paper would be of no use to me, "except as a launch pad to grind a paper axe." <br /><br />I SWEAR I am not making up the above. The point, you see, is that this well-known poet-critic was more or less sarcastically telling me--I think fair to conclude--that even if I *were* on Facebook I'd be excluded from the ongoing conversation around his paper, since a hopeless "Bordeauvian" like me, as he termed it, would never be given status as a "friend" of his to discuss it!<br /><br />All situational humor aside, it seems to me such exclusionist disposition is most unfortunate. Some would say, in fact, the general disposition seems increasingly prevalent in our avant neck of the woods, even if it's usually expressed in more subtle forms and flows than the weird and vulgar instance from my anecdote. A number of others, I believe, have pointed to the organizational dynamics of the "Rethinking Poetics" conference itself as suggestive of this. Though not that exclusivity and supervision are anything new in the poetic field, of course... <br /><br />Now, I realize, in regards to the Facebook matter, that someone might say: "Look, the same thing can happen on a blog; the blog owner can prevent you from commenting, etc." <br /><br />True enough. But at least there is no way the blog owner can keep me from reading and considering his or her writing or from perhaps offering my views on it in another venue if the topic seems important enough.<br /><br />So this paper you are referring to above, Josh (I suspect it's the same one), well, I for one have never seen it. And one of the reasons I haven't is that its author has conveniently used Facebook's gatekeeping functions to keep me from seeing it (and thus potentially commenting on it). <br /><br />So I guess all this is by way of saying, with some sadness and nostalgia for the good old days of the free and open forum: Hurrah for those antique journals and those fading blogs!<br /><br />KentKent Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15233688630151467658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096739.post-82268461996698133732010-07-19T16:24:22.210-04:002010-07-19T16:24:22.210-04:00I love that big O'Keefe at the Art Institute.I love that big O'Keefe at the Art Institute.Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14338977682353659890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096739.post-52543285576726636412010-07-19T13:11:16.512-04:002010-07-19T13:11:16.512-04:00Josh--
Matt Guenette here, from the AWP,F. Just ...Josh--<br /><br />Matt Guenette here, from the AWP,F. Just wanted to say it was great meeting you. Wished I'd been able to stick around and talk more. Maybe next time...<br /><br />I linked to your AWP,F blog-post from my website (www.matthewguenette.com). Thanks for making the drive up to Arena. And thanks for keeping up this very smart, very energetic blog.Name: Matthew Guenettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06901074740673802260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4096739.post-4062695530103354942010-07-18T18:28:32.386-04:002010-07-18T18:28:32.386-04:00Friends don't let friends use facebook.Friends don't let friends use facebook.meikahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17410659353169461214noreply@blogger.com