This, that, ... and the other thing.
 

I have a few things to report.

I had a poem up at We Are Kin about a week ago--"Chimaera." They also accepted "My Fisherman's Sweater."

The Literary Bohemian has accepted a poem called "De Profundis."

My old chestnut, "The Sandwich Man of Thornall Towers," was accepted in an anthology of sonnets that Mary Meriam is compiling at Headmistress Press called Irresistible Sonnets. Very glad to be in that one.

Another Sonnet, "Star Trek," was accepted by Great Weather for Media for their 2013 anthology. And my seven-sonnet crown, "Lexanne," will be in Rabbit Ears, an anthology of TV poems that I know Holly is in.

I have signed off on the final draft of my collection Coelacanth, which is due out in June, maybe in time for West Chester.

All my work comes through here, it seems. Thanks to all as always.

Rick

Thanks for reading this mawkishly padded list, friends. I'm trying to convince myself I'm still in the game (I got the wind knocked out of me at New Walk, which reviewed Soutine).

Sorry about the negative review, Rick. I can't even get my book-lengther into print, as it happens. Glad to hear about the upcoming collection, in any event.

Oh, I'll be OK. Thanks.

Congratulations, Rick. You are really doing well! You are very accomplished.

Bonnie

Hi, Rick, I'm looking forward to checking out the new work I can find on line. I especially look forward to "Star Trek." (Yes, I'm a nerd...) Do you know Bryan Dietrich's collection Prime Directive?

I'm sorry to hear Soutine got a bad review. I think it's excellent, as are the Stones Jones Canzones. In any case, congrats on having so much good news overshadow the bad!

Rick, I’m not sure what the connection is between you and the Beach Boys, but your link reminded me of back in 1969 or early 70s when I still lived in Beverly Glen Canyon and discovered them rehearsing in a nearby garage. Another time, climbing over the hills above the Stone Canyon reservoir, I found them playing in a clearing, we talked, I said a poem or two, and we smoked. Clever guys. Maybe something (for me) to write about!

And Wow, congrats on your projects!

Ralph

Great work, Rick. You are pouring it on. Soutine is wonderful from the memorable first line with the artist and the world created in a lightning flash of charcoal on brown paper.

Read Soutine, friends. You won't go away hungry.

What Bill said.
Congrats on all these fine acceptances, Rick.

Thanks folks! That Beach Boys song, Ralph, is the male anthem for feeling sorry for oneself--going to the quiet place and gaining perspective. That's why the girls in the audience are screaming!

As I told Rory Waterman and Nick Everett at New Walk in my "thank you" e-mail, it is a fair review. My objections and refutations shall be reserved, I told them, for the sock puppet hour (same room as in the Beach Boy song) and I will gladly take what I can get--which ain't easy to get. New Walk published a review, and the "thank you" to the editors (now public) is quite sincere. The sock puppets have been packed away.

RM

Rick,

Congrats on all the upcoming stuff. Great works get negative reviews from some reviewers, as I am sure you know. Soutine is a great work.

David R.

Hey Rick, not mawkish! A good bag--boast away! I'm curious about the Soutine review... Meanwhile, check this out by X. (I was looking for the track "What's Wrong with Me," but it doesn't appear to be on YouTube. And this one has a better message!)

Charlotte

Huge congrats, Rick, on all those acceptances, and on your wonderfully-titled new book! Quoting from a comment I read elsewhere on the sphere, A.E. Stallings once said "all ink is good ink," referring to "bad reviews," which, when one has "arrived," go with the territory. Rejoice that they considered you a force to be reckoned with, even if the reckoning doesn't gush. Critics, on some level, feel almost an obligation to find something wrong. In their reverse world, that's the only way to get a little respect. The author is presumed to have that already – otherwise they wouldn't bother.

To your force field!
Siham

I rather like Rick Mullen's book; but like Rick I also respect Dawn Potter, our reviewer of this collection - who happens to be a wonderful poet in her own right. I don't know what this 'reverse world' is, but she doesn't belong to it. The trouble with modern poetry reviewing is that almost everyone is busy saying that everything is wonderful all the time regardless of whatever they might really think. An insightful reviewer prepared to raise questions, politely and intelligently and without having an agenda, is a rarity to be valued. Poetry isn't an art on life support. Your comment is rather insulting to the thoughtful people who do not want it on life support, who regard it as healthy enough to withstand a wee tug every now and then, who write about it because they care enough to do so and who regard themselves as having a duty to the reader and the book, not to either of the authors. Such reviewers want to praise, and when they do you can be sure they mean it. Your comment also fails to note that - for what it is worth - most of the critics and reviewers of modern poetry are themselves poets. Any poet-reviewer who is prepared to be anything other than full of praise risks revenge reviews now and again in this often rather bloody foolish little poetry world. Those happen.

Moreover, in his modesty Rick slightly overstates the negativity of Potter's review. It is in many ways quite praising and full of admiration - for the poet if not for this particular book. She seems to think he is worth knowing about, and her opinion is worth listening to.

Post the review.

Please?

Andrew,

www.newwalkmagazine.bigcartel.com. Issue 7. There are many other reasons to order the issue - and yes, I would say that!

Great tune, Charlotte. Sounds like the Tom Tom Club, a bit.

Rick, I loved Soutine and I have shared it. Looking forward to your new book!

Speaking solely as one who wishes to be considered "a poet", I am grateful to study what reviewers regard as negative aspects in a good (or bad) volume. I may or may not agree, depending on the book, the reviewer or the vehicle publishing it. But only a "critical" review that looks for and mentions the the good, the bad and the ugly is worth respect. I'm happy when friends get good reviews, I'm happy when the reviewer's opinion happens to coincide with mine, but where we (speaking for we poets not we author) learn most is not from buddy reviews on Amazon.

BTW, another good issue from NW.

Rick,

Best not to worry about such things. I've always liked Vadim Vadimovich's attitude in Look At The Harlequins:

"
GERRY Do you ever see this paper, Vadim (accenting "Vadim" incorrectly on the first syllable)? Mister (naming a particularly lively criticule) has demolished your Olga (my novel about the professors; it had come out only now in the British edition).

VADIM May I give you a drink? We'll toast him and roast him.

GERRY Yet he's right, you know. It is your worst book. Chute complete, says the man. Knows French, too.

LOUISE No drinks. We've got to rush home. Now heave out of that chair. Try again. Take your glasses and paper. There. Au revoir, Vadim. I'll bring you those pills tomorrow morning after I drive him to school."

Of course, much of the hilarity comes from Gerry's naïveté... ;)

Best,

Bill

With all due respect, Rory, I don't find Siham's comment in any way 'insulting'. You make many good points in your response, but Siham's comment from a different perspective is likewise rather perceptive. It's not an either/or issue here--and if we are to take you at your word, the role of a critic can and must also be subjected to the same sort of review as the work of the poet, both positively and negatively observed. There have been many fine writer's throughout history who have been far more scathing about that critical role than Siham has in her gently worded and fascinating characterization of it.

Nemo

"Insulting" may be too strong a word, but I do suppose I would feel at least somewhat offended if people accused me of saying negative things in a review not because I believed them to be true, but only because I felt an obligation to find fault.

But there is an obligation to find fault, in a way, which is why throughout history there has been, quite naturally, a sort of pitched battle between critics and artists. The workshop environment is no different. One picks nits for the sake of picking sometimes because without that picking the prime reason for the existence of the 'forum' might be called into question. And I am not saying that either side doesn't have a perfectly cogent argument; only that viewing it from one particular side is not an "insult" to the other, and that the concept of a reverse world, a mirror image, is a very interesting and not necessarily confrontational perspective. It is naive to whitewash the role of sage reviewer while too quickly characterizing the world of the poet as often "bloody", "little", and "foolish". Surely those modifiers could be applied all round.

Nemo

I don't think there is an obligation to find fault if there is no fault to find, and the suggestion that a critic may bend over backwards to find fault when there is none is indeed somewhat insulting to the critic. The best critics will resist the impulse to overpraise or overcriticize based on what they feel is expected from a review. I haven't read this particular review, but what would bother me about the negative criticism would not be the likelihood that I disagree with it, but if I were to find the reviewer to be gleefully snarky about her opinions (and Rick seems to indicate that she was not). I can't stand it when a critic takes pleasure in finding a work does not measure up, and uses it as an occasion to show off the wit with which he can scornfully dismiss it.

Not to pick nits or nitpick, but I'm betting there is -- at least at the onset of many reviews -- no more reason to find fault than to find right. Fault often gets better press, though, so what comes out can occasionally be racked with treason.

My advice (which lacks insight) would be to make the best of it.

Roger,

I couldn't agree more. These are absolutely the worst kind of reviews, and I turn away from them in horror and embarrassment. They reflect most poorly on the critic, and often have nothing to do with the poet... but of course, it's the poet who suffers in these cases.

But I find the second worst kind nearly as bad: the formula review- hook, description, three good things, two bad things, final clever comment. I'm baffled why so many use this formula, when a simple description would suffice. Thinking about it, it's been a long time since I read a "just the facts, Ma'am" review... ;)

Thanks,

Bill

The concept of there being "no fault to find" is of course somewhat impossible, since "fault" is entirely subjective in this context. So acknowledging that there is always fault to be found is the same as saying there is an obligation to find fault on the part of the critic, for that is the nature of the role. I don't think the critic is being "accused" of anything in the original remarks that occasioned this discussion. I think it was a more a matter of roles being examined. My follow-up was just pointing out that critics themselves can be as thin-skinned as artists. If a poet must accept the fact that they must respond with equanimity to the fact that fault can be found, then why shouldn't the critic have to accept the the same fact with equal calm. What's more, I hardly think that Siham was attempting to denigrate the reviewer or the review (not even Rick has done that), but rather to soothe the poet who has received the at least partially negative critique--a situation which, all rationality aside, can always use the soothing touch. Yet a good deed toward one, is so often interpreted as an "insult" to another. Such is life.

Nemo

That's true, Nemo.

I suppose the problem with any review is that no single reader is representative of all other readers. That's why I like reviews that quote and describe more than they praise or condemn. When the reviews do that, I sometimes seek out books that received "negative" reviews and lose interest in books that received "positive" reviews.

Just to finally weigh in here, Nemo was right in that I was trying to soothe the poet re the fact that reviewers are by definition almost supposed to consider the harder aspects of possible weak points in the work of art (poetry or otherwise) they review, and that merely being reviewed itself is a good thing.

You also are right, Rory, in that "reverse world" implies critics are in some sort of other dimension where the rules are bent in the other direction. But it was never meant to reply specifically to the reviewer, any reviewer but to the process of critique.

As this thread amply shows, the most respected reviewers are those who are "not afraid" to call out the artist on weaknesses or negative points. If they don't do it, who will? But I disagree that a poet may be obligated to gush lest other poets-turned-reviewers take it out on him/her in return. On the contrary, I think a tough reviewer actually makes others respect their work more and fear being on the receiving end of said toughness.

The most respected reviewers are probably on the tough side. It shouldn't be an insult to imply there is an expectation and even respect for toughness, since I never said or implied that any critic is dishonest in so doing. This is, like poetry, a subjective art, and all pretense at universal standards is merely a useful stance but not "pretense" in any morally objectionable way. Picasso said "art is a lie that helps us to see the truth." Are all accusations of "lies" then insults?

Even here in a workshop, when we act as reviewers we are expected not to gush and to enter instead the reverse world of the critic. It's a world I respect and without it art would have no backbone. It makes the occasional words of praise all the brighter, and gives greater value to art in general by positing standards.

Siham

Interesting thread/discussion, and Siham asks an excellent question, via Picasso, that kind of turns the discussion on its head (kind of Picassoesque). I'd rather not be painted as a relativist, but nonetheless, I've sensed or occasionally found out (not always even the hard way) that much of life is what you make of it.

There was a Taschen series of books issued on prominent modernist painters a few years back, (maybe 1980s or so, coffee table type paperback oversized folios) that were always rich in quotes, the Picasso book being one I remember. I also remember the Edward Hopper book, and the following quote, one of my favorites by anyone of any genre, which I imagine may have been in response to a critic/critique:

"Maybe I am not very human -- what I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house."