Over at Accomplished Members there's quite a discussion of Joseph Salemi's review of Rina Espaillat's book; the review was published at the Expansive Music and Poetry site, I believe.
One accusation is that Salemi slammed the book partly because of WHO wrote it and partly because of what the book ISN'T about; in other words, he wasn't reviewing the verse qua verse. Those accusations might very well be correct. The responses have been in many cases attacks on Salemi, in other words, attacks not on WHAT he wrote but on WHO wrote it -- or, more accurately, attacks not on the accuracy of what he wrote so much as on his supposed limitations or motivations.
The responses in many cases are no less ad hominem than the attackers accuse the original reviewing of being. At the same time, we often like things -- genuinely like them -- partly because of the way we feel about the writer. I suppose that's a pro hominem response.
To get to the point: How much does your opinion of the writer influence your opinion of the work, pro or con: the writer's class or politics, sexual orientation, proximity to you in various senses, whatever. I'm not asking whether these things SHOULD influence your opinion. A secondary question is, Do you find yourself rationalizing your opinion, looking for more or less objective criteria to support it, even when your opinion arose from circumstances that had little to do with those criteria?
Example: If a poem or the poet already has my empathy I'll likely see departures from the established meter as somehow expressive; if not, I'll likely see them as sloppy.
RPW
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