I find it odd that while other recent pieces have been - not inappropriately - criticised for lack of subtlety in developing satire, this foot-banging piece attracts such igenious and elaborate explanations of quality. The poem has a neat idea, on the general application of which Ann is entirely right, and the notion is also made all the more telling because of the double meaning of the poem's title. However, it then flogs the conceit to death, rather as Rick suggests stand-up comics do. Not, in my book, a flattering comparison - being bludgeoned into mirth seeming inherently unlikely.
Of course, I don't enjoy the advantage of having met and heard the poet's performance, which seems to weigh heavily with some of these crits - so what do I know. Nothing really except that here, as elsewhere in lit crit, there seems to be a multiplicity of standards and I'm not sure that the disparity here is one that is justified.
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Threaded Mode
