overland - review bias?
not to diss on the excellent overland or its blog discussion http://web.overland.org.au/?p=1058 - but came across the link on derek motion's blog typing space (sorry derek, tried to get the link to work but it won't for some reason keeps going to wordpress main page - so trust people know your blog well enough to have it in favourites or they can just google you and find it) - and so responded with a comment on derek's blog and a mention that i had done so on the overland blog comments.
please link to derek's blog comment on this one for what i think, as i am too lazy now to retype it all, but happy if any want to challenge me here directly.
i can't think of anything or anyone who warrants a blatant 'running interference' as i said on derek's comment stream - this sort of thing silences true and healthy discussion of poetics in ozland (or i said it in a longer and more detailed fashion).
just doesn't seem right to me and i feel it needs to be addressed more completely by the editors of Overland, than what appears to be the rationale offered in the Overland blog comments stream.
mistakes are ok, but to defend them as being ok, seems not too cool and a little lacking the rigor required for independent discussion. i myself, prefer not to write a review if there is nothing positive to say, let the work go unreviewed - but for those brave enough to challenge with a not so nice review, go for it - but watch your back.
please link to derek's blog comment on this one for what i think, as i am too lazy now to retype it all, but happy if any want to challenge me here directly.
i can't think of anything or anyone who warrants a blatant 'running interference' as i said on derek's comment stream - this sort of thing silences true and healthy discussion of poetics in ozland (or i said it in a longer and more detailed fashion).
just doesn't seem right to me and i feel it needs to be addressed more completely by the editors of Overland, than what appears to be the rationale offered in the Overland blog comments stream.
mistakes are ok, but to defend them as being ok, seems not too cool and a little lacking the rigor required for independent discussion. i myself, prefer not to write a review if there is nothing positive to say, let the work go unreviewed - but for those brave enough to challenge with a not so nice review, go for it - but watch your back.
posted by Louise at 12:15 PM
9 Comments:
Oh, yours is by far the most rational and sane response, Louise. I still think the review was flawed and shouldn't have been published in the first place but I'm just an amateur. Do you think there is any L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry (or that it should be spelled with all those capitals and ='s) in Mr Kinsella's work? Or maybe that's not the point. The weather is beautiful at the moment.
i think it is all language isn't it? so i do hate it with the capitals and the equals. as to kinsella, well what interests me about his work (being no expert) but having read early work as well as some recent (mostly poetry) - what interests me is his use of different (what i call) modes of writing. lyric,& avant garde/post avant/experimental & and some other combination of ?? not too sure.
i like this as it is what i like to do, mainly working it in two modes for my own poetry.
i guess that the review could have been more detailed and possibly explored more fully some aspects of what kinsella does/did - but not having read the works cited in the review, just silly to have any sound opinion.
i just hate the idea of people messing with independent thinking, whether as in this case a review or something else.
it feels like a 'nanny' thing and it seems to be shocking to have that happen within the 'left' thinking journals.
i reiterate that publishing two reviews on someone as high profile as kinsella would have to be better than sending one reviewer out into the fray and then allowing the poet to peek and reply alongside the published review.
it just feels wrong wrong wrong - but different strokes and all...
weather glorious here too, and a nice crisp morning.
I agree totally! Good on you Lou:
first rule of poetry:
never answer your critics
it's a hard lesson to learn
Bob Aadamson
hi bob,
thanks for your comments and your visit to my blog...you will no doubt have read the overland blog discussions.
just a stupid thing to do really, and john kinsella (& overland eds) should know better than to try to answer the critics in that fashion.
it reads lame no matter what is said.
louise
Holey mackeral! Is that the real Robert Adamson? Cool.
“It’s just that if you’re not disruptive everything seems to be repeated endlessly - not so much the good things but the bland things - the ordinary things - the weaker things get repeated- the stronger things get suppressed and held down and hidden.” Robert Adamson (a true legend of Australian Poetry).
Hello, the fantabulous Ms Waller. (leaning over the back fence). You can't listen to everyone or you'll go mad. All the others I know I will eventually have fundamental differences of opinion with, at some point. So I have decided to listen to the incredibly cool Graham Nunn, the true legend of Robert Adamson (although he doesn't say much when he does we all should shut up and listen) and you, Ms Waller, because I like your poetry and you are so much smarter than I am.
It is a gorgeous Sunday and I am off to the river for fish, salad and perhaps a beer or two.
Yours (often trapped in elenchus)
MC Paulus.
Someone at Overland has made a big mistake. In giving Kinsella a preview of Elizabeth Campbell's review they broke an unwritten code, there used to be many such publishing codes but most have fallen away, this one remains: for important reasons. Kinsella is good at breaking codes, he is by his own admission, an anarchist. Response to his critic before publication looks very bad and it has the appearance of a set-up. The Red K is a total control freak but I am very saddened to see a journal of integrity like Overland sucked into his vortex of self promotion.
Bob Adamson
hi paul, ah yes, but you see ' i also do not know' and don't be giving me credit for any smarts i'm not entitled to...if you knew how little i really do know, you'd be a little surprised and a lot more delighted with your own sharps. (a smiley)
went to the byfield mountains today...lovely
hi bob,
no, overland did not act well by sending the review out to kinsella (no possible reason to do that other than to stir things up)and i'm sure that if he had not read it prior to publication, well, he may have acted differently. i think it was a set up too. the control thing must be a drag after so long, it's a shame.
cheers,
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