Sunday, October 5, 2008

I'm not sure what the point of any of this is

Why it should matter whether I'm on board with her blog or not is a mystery. And isn't it equally my prerogative to wish for, and describe the kind of blog posts that I would like to see? To talk about that on my blog? My blog, by the way, not a review, not in the national media. My opinion on my blog...something you can read or not read, and a post about a larger question, by the way. No one has to click on my blog.

So perhaps it's best to ignore? Perhaps, but then it just goes on--clearly it goes on. I guess this is why so few people speak out publicly against this kind of tactic. It goes on.

I'm not sure what the point of any of this is. To discredit this space? Me? Whatever. I'm not going further with this kind of engagement. It's a space where people should feel safe to say what they think and not have to worry about this kind of shut-up passive aggression.

4 comments:

Megan said...

Having experienced this over the past four days, I am confident in saying that some people are horrified at the idea that anyone would have a professional disagreement with them. Writers are apparently very sensitive.

If you disagree with her, you should just shut up, Zach. Freedom of speech is important only for people who want to say nice things about her, doncha know?

Anonymous said...

Zach, your response is characteristically out of proportion to what Sina actually wrote on her blog about your recent anthology. Such scatter-gun rhetoric as you have posted here is not winning you any friends nor is it making people actually believe that you are the defender of free opinion and the well-tempered critic that you claim to be. If you cannot accept even the mildest of criticism directed at you, you really are in the wrong business.

Rachel said...

Sina remarks on the "sameness of the selection" and implies that it gives you only "one way of looking at the sonnet." She says that she has to rely on coursepacks still for her teaching. OK, fair enough, she read the book and didn't find that it went far enough. But no, as she admits, she hasn't even read it! How can someone publicly dismiss and criticize (however harshly or mildly) a book that they have never even read? It makes it pretty hard to take her blog posts seriously.

Anonymous said...

Zach, for shame! lemon hound is quite right-- where is the unmustiness in JB of Steve McCaffery, as achingly, dramatically set out in his "Sonnet"?:

"In Aberdeen it was 13
In Athens it was 16
In Berlin it was 11 ... "

and so on, until we get to the crucial turn. Here's the payoff:

"It was 18 in Lisbon
It was 21 in ....."

You're, of course, right on the mark. McCaffery is exploiting the form to make a sour attack on it. Fine. But it isn't a "sonnet", and it ain't poetry, either.

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Further, you're of course right, as well, in the rest of your argument. As megan has pointed out, "free speech" and "communication" is only important for the likes of Queyras when those she engages with agree with her (though she didn't sing "Kumbayaa" in her own initial blog post).