I'd read the Guardian article. A shame it's only small snippets. I would have like to have read her whole talk.
I just read
the latest Poets' Respond poem on Rattle, about which the poet, Adam Zetela, says, " “I wrote this poem in response to the public beatdown of Amélie Wen Zhao. Although it could have just as easily been written in response to the censure of Anders Carlson-Wee and other writers. In the name of social justice, there is a trend to give writers the least generous readings. These public performances of outrage are disastrous for both art and politics.”
I think he's spot on about that. That has definitely been the case is the online "outrage fests" that I've witnessed on Facebook etc. It's quite disturbing to see critics insist that there's only way to read a particular poem, and it's clear to them (the critic) that that's absolutely the only way to understand it, and that's what the poet meant. I thought
the apology the Nation was pretty telling. Basically they say: "At first we read it as poem, then we didn't".
The
Amélie Wen Zhao situation is laid out here.
I tried Twitter briefly. What I discovered is the character count is too small to actually write anything balanced or nuanced. OK, I know can be wordy, but still, maybe that explains something, I don't know.