tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8331091556972756885.post7881002602963383669..comments2023-10-16T05:07:54.473-07:00Comments on B O C A: STOLEN SHALLOWSMiguel Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02183899013421989591noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8331091556972756885.post-6972290686662570292009-07-03T12:03:03.380-07:002009-07-03T12:03:03.380-07:00Don't worry, Miguel, I can be unkind, too. Es...Don't worry, Miguel, I can be unkind, too. Especially after a bottle of wine at lunch.<br /><br />Working on a post for you.<br /><br />With much affection and respect,<br />SteveSteve Fellnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11383222975171349962noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8331091556972756885.post-51924817059237019812009-07-02T12:04:54.341-07:002009-07-02T12:04:54.341-07:00Hi! Steve
You know, the comment was more a flag t...Hi! Steve<br /><br />You know, the comment was more a flag to my own insecurity, because I love to read lit. crit, but find that I'm not very adept at it myself.. . It was a little game with myself, to say what a "real critic" might do, a kind of deliberate mask. <br /><br />What a plague the ineffable.<br /><br />Phillips' work in particular seems to me controversial if a reader wants their gay black poets to talk about gay black experience in an accessible way. Instead, he's excessible, and in this way, I'd argue, a great antidote to Doty. Still,<br /><br />when I'm reading him--and maybe this is my real point in that entry--those issues that are politically dear to me, race, class, gender, have a deep resonance with that bitch of the ineffable, <br /><br />me, but not in any didactic manner, and not in a way I am comfortable with. I haven't been very good at being a critic in that I haven't really explained what I mean about Phillips' excess. For that matter: Does his syntax, or use of abstraction, or his manner of the line reflect gender, race, or class? Are his highbrow sentences and rhetorical questions evidence of an advantaged or disadvantaged background? I don't necessarily know that I care, since I'm looking for something else entirely when I read him. But I'd also argue that these questions are more easily approached in a poetry that is both didactic and confessional, and since I don't really know anything about the man, he certainly isn't autobiographical in this sense!, I'd feel presumptuous at best.<br /><br />For me, all good poems are political in that they can be written into the ineffable they seek, and in this way I can read Celan, or Tsvetaeva, or Shakespeare, and feel like I've received something in this prison. Even if we write poems from our gay, single, immigrant migrant worker, 2nd generation American 21st century perspective. <br /><br />I struggle with this issue, I can't think of a single poem in my first book that mentions my background in such a stark and clear manner. Still, this is the perspective, the grave, out of which my poems are written. <br /><br />What I'm not as clear about in my post are the ways that Phillips' work approaches these issues, other than to say I see them palimpsested tonally. And though I think this has something to do with their metaphysical quality, I feel too presumptuous to ask his poems for a judgement about black identity, and in many cases, gay identity. This is a flaw on my part as a reader, it's what makes my entry commentary and not real (I should have said, good) criticism. <br /><br /> I certainly don't think beauty is at odds with criticism. In fact, I think great criticism is a defense of beauty. I think a commentarist is someone who fails beauty in the most sentimental fashion. <br /><br />If I come off as conservative, (me?!) it's because I'm a poor critic and a good commentarist, LOL, and not because I want to escape political accountability, tiresome as that is.<br /><br />But just for the record, I am regularly unkind. <br /><br />ardently yours, this bitch of the ineffableMiguel Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02183899013421989591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8331091556972756885.post-42254103430116956832009-07-02T06:35:39.900-07:002009-07-02T06:35:39.900-07:00Hey,
I wanted to think before I said something--w...Hey,<br /><br />I wanted to think before I said something--which I'm not good at. Common sense eludes me.<br /><br />I guess this is what irritates me: I feel it's a bit reactionary and cagey. What really is the difference between a commentator and critic. A critic talks about things in a rigid framework like race class gender and has no appreciation for actual beauty?<br /><br />Do you think that's fair?<br /><br />The reason why I've always wanted to be a critic (other than my junior high identification for Roger Ebert: we were both fat) is that I loved that critics so much about movies that they became obsessed.<br /><br />I love the beauty of art more than anything else and I do think in these times we live in art needs to be occasionally looked at in terms of class. I always think beauty can be discussed: sentence variations, rhythym, organization, syntax, employment of abstractions.<br /><br />But there is something called magic, or at least that's what I'd call it, why a piece of art just pops, why you all of a sudden lose self-consciousness, the ineffable.<br /><br />Since magic is impossible to convey, why not talk about the things we can: beauty and yea politics (would you feel less threatened by politics if we exchanged it for the word ethics??)<br /><br />I'm game for that.<br /><br />I also know that I hate when the isms are employed just because it's easy, just because it makes the person feel good, just because it feels charitable...<br /><br />But if the motive is emotionally true (a word academics would murder me for) I think if it's fine, as long as its see as a framework, a framework that may need to be used in certain historical times.<br /><br />That's all. I just felt that for someone who is politically engaged, who made that issue of Ocho, that it seemed a bit conservative, and a bit unkind.Steve Fellnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11383222975171349962noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8331091556972756885.post-7607256502182087562009-07-01T19:15:41.105-07:002009-07-01T19:15:41.105-07:00Lol. Glad to oblige, I think. . .
Or: what on ea...Lol. Glad to oblige, I think. . . <br /><br />Or: what on earth do you mean?Miguel Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02183899013421989591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8331091556972756885.post-79066253487800234622009-07-01T13:46:59.053-07:002009-07-01T13:46:59.053-07:00This post concerns me a bit.This post concerns me a bit.Steve Fellnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11383222975171349962noreply@blogger.com