[Douglas Basford]

Quincy,

While I am glad to hear that you have found Unsplendid a good read so far, I'd appreciate it if you not rush to make assumptions about what I claim to represent or what Unsplendid is--based on a single issue. Unsplendid is NOT, repeat NOT, supported or sponsored by any entity at Johns Hopkins. Punto. I have said as much on these boards before. While I did speak somewhat in the voice as one _teaching_ in The Writing Seminars, I am working damned hard to ensure that the journal not become a kind of entrenched Hopkins-grad-only pub. Other journals, some university-based and some not, have become incestuous in a way that I want to avoid. We have gone out of our way to solicit and review work from non-Hopkins, non-Ohio State folk like Geoff Brock, Alicia Stallings, Jill Rosser, Harvey Hix, John Poch, Peter Campion, Ben Howard, Jennifer Perrine, Hailey Leithauser, Dan Beachy-Quick, Elizabeth Hadaway, Eric McHenry, Anne Pierson Wiese, Mark Jarman, and many others yet to come. If I sound defensive, well, what can I say, you made me a bit hot under the collar, you did.

Something that one has to admit, however, is that there simply aren't many writing programs in the U.S. in which meter and received forms weigh so heavily in the curriculum as they do at Hopkins and OSU. Mostly it's scattered "formalists" plying their trade wherever they can, or "decamped" poets writing in meter, etc. Bottom line, I want to cull their best work together and promote it via Unsplendid as much as I want to do the same with the best work by poets I once had the pleasure of calling colleagues and associates. I don't even want to see the journal as a regional publication. The whole point was to make poetry in received and nonce forms as widely accessible as possible, to avoid the fate of yet another undersold/understocked print journal or anthology.

Maybe I erred in repeating what others have said about poetry scenes elsewhere in the world (Italy's being the only one I know from direct personal experience)--I was just objecting to the old line about the death of poetry, etc. Fer Jiminy's sake I slapped no labels on anyone, deserved or undeserved.

Best,
D

[Tim Love]

(Roberto Benigni's recitation of Dante drew a record TV audience) - See also http://www.rdono.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Mo....ap/index.html

[Quincy Lehr]

Doug--

Sorry if I misconstrued anything. This was the bit I was referring to (in "Bienvenuto," an essay I found thought-provoking and very smart, by the way):

"Being cognizant of a groundswell of interest in formal poetry—even outside of Johns Hopkins and Ohio State, our main bases of operation, now veritable swarming nests of formalists: Greg Williamson, Andrew Hudgins, Henri Cole (soon to join OSU's permanent faculty), Mary Jo Salter and Brad Leithauser (both joining JHU's permanent faculty), Kathy Fagan, Joseph Harrison, John T. Irwin, and their students—we want to publish poetry and translations of poetry in received forms and nonce forms, reviews, and essays indicative of the best that's being done now, as well as some neglected work of the past."

Now, I did not mean to imply that the operation was a closed shop, but this passage does come across a bit po-biz. But I really didn't mean to pick a fight over it.

Quincy

[Douglas Basford]

Quincy,

I take your point about that passage, though I'd hoped that the noticeable lack of contributions by anyone on that list save Greg Williamson, the somewhat off-putting language of "swarming nests," and the non-JHU URL might indicate a certain contrariness/outsiderness, by choice and by necessity. But I also admit I was more focused on the strangeness of the emergence of such centers of "formalism" long after the New Formalism's ostensible heyday.

On a related note, all four editors agreed we wouldn't post our bios, unlike those of a number of other online mags, precisely because we didn't want this to become a vehicle for self-promotion.

I have been burned enough by academia to want to see its course changed, though I'm also capable of laughing deep belly laughs at it (and myself). I pointed out the "Baltimore School" thingy elsewhere but smirking as I typed. What's more, by internal constitution I'm anti-schmoozing (I pointedly skipped the AWP meeting when it was in Baltimore) and, as such, playing tireless booster and delighted collector has sometimes pushed my tolerance for sprightliness. Love of the art is ultimately what drives me, and what contributions I'm making come straight out of my pocket and scraps of free time. Sure, I'll holler in the wilderness until I lose my voice on other matters where I'm not "on the inside," and I'm as good as the next guy at fruitlessly whining. Whatever you may think about Chomsky he does have a point about working for change from within an institution--whatever the limited extent my uploading into the PoBiz matrix has been I will stand straddling the boundary of campus and broadcast our little reports by Internet megaphone. I am grateful for your words about the intro essay, and I hope we live up to what we have promised.

As for not wanting to pick a fight, well, when you roll your eyes at someone, you know, you invite a response. I dislike conflict immensely but I couldn't let mischaracterization stand, that's all.

My, how this has veered off-topic.

All best,
D

[Quincy Lehr]

Doug--

You seem to be one of the good guys, for what it's worth.

At any rate, back to Missing Measures.

Quincy

[This message has been edited by Quincy Lehr (edited September 10, 2007).]