Saturday, July 4, 2009

When some poets settle for being gatekeepers, consigning the verse they hate to oblivion.

This is rather chilling, when you parse it carefully. The passage below is someone (name again omitted to protect the guilty) responding to ex-Orange County and current-New England poet/tastemaker Victor Infante's recent post about Poetry Critics:

Victor this is wonderful! I've always shunned the term "critic" in favor of the terms "promoter" or "champion". My podcast sometimes gets complaints that I seem to love everything. And my response has always been, sure there is poetry I hate. I just don't bother with it. I'm too busy trying to champion the things I love. The idea that the role of the critic is to fight for what is to survive is elegant and sweet.Excellent post!!!!

Infante's original post:
http://ocvictor.livejournal.com/772896.html

I guess I believe in the "retail mentality." I imagine poetry being akin to, say, the local Amoeba Records store in Hollywood. If you want free verse, there's a department. If you want sonnets or sestinas, look for departments for those poetric forms. If you desire poetry written in Esperanto, there's a department for that.

To espouse an idea that "the role of the critic is to fight for what is to survive" is sheer silliness--and rather Nazi-like as well.

In the end, it's the task of the potential reader--not the critic--to make the ultimate determination about what he or she wants to read and/or champion.

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