[Nigel Holt]

I don't honestly know what all the fuss is about - I thought it was a very entertaining piece.

Nigel

[Tim Murphy]

Nigel, In the unlikely event you ever attract so unjustly hostile a review, you'll understand "what all the fuss is about." The review is so bad, and one telling point I've neglected to make is that the two tercets in 15 syllable lines are snatched from the context of a 120 line dramatic monologue, the speaker being a lady born in Persia some 400 years ago and presented by the Shah to an English diplomat, who took her to wife. These two tercets further and deepen the reader's understanding of her character, yet Logan presents them as though Davis were speaking in his own voice, "best left to the professionals, the greeting card writers." A dramatic monologue of this power is quite beyond the reach of our friend Barbara Loots and all her staff at Hallmark. This is critical persiflage at its worst. Furthermore, this is not "Kipling in a malarial fit." If I am not mistaken, the demanding form is Browning's. R.S. Gwynn emailed me this link from West Chester, with the note: "Yet another reason to stock up on ammo and head to Florida."

[Paul Lake]

Tim Murphy wrote:

R.S. Gwynn emailed me this link from West Chester, with the note: "Yet another reason to stock up on ammo and head to Florida."

Hey, Tim, you've piqued our curiosity, so where's the link?

I also wanted to mention how much I liked your poetic response to Logan. Such chiseled stanzas honoring Wilbur and Hecht, Hope and Davis, say more than any critical prose.

[Josh]

I would add that his criticism of stanza two of "Shadows" is unjust and, again, misleading. I've always thought of answering a primary with a secondary accent as a petit coup, but Logan sounds as if he's speaking against it generally. In any case, innumerable precedents come quickly to mind. e.g.: "thee" and "posterity," "free" and "Euphrosyne," "come" and "Byzantium." And, in Logan's own poems, e.g., "pack" and "Cadillac." These do precisely what Logan has just said Dick doesn't do: vary the rhythm as against the meter. And if he's criticizing this particular rhyme, it's merely his opinion, for which he gives no reason, and one I needn't agree with. And it doesn't make it any more objective a criticisim to co-opt the language of prosody.

But this is what I mean about its being a pain to answer Logan. "Shadows" is a personal favorite, but, out of context, it surely comes closest to suiting Logan's needs if he wants to criticize the collection as humdrum. Well, it might be if every line were like those he quotes in "Shadows," but that's far from being the case. The criticism is so petty and minor! Why doesn't he mention "Guides for the Soul," or "Aubade" or, as you point out, Tim, the greater part of "Teresia Shirley," or "Iran Twenty Years Ago" or "Gongora," etc., none of which is in the least humdrum. I think these are fantastic poems, and among Dick's best!

[This message has been edited by Josh (edited June 11, 2002).]

[Tim Murphy]

Dear Paul, humane critic that you are: The link was to Logan's essay in The New Criterion. By contrast, Professor Mezey sent me today a yellowed clipping from the NYT Book Review, in which my great teacher, Robert Penn Warren, remembered his great teacher, J.C. Ransom. There Donald Davies was reviewing the Selected Essays of JCR, his review superimposed above Warren's affectionate memoir, and Davies spoke of JCR's 'mannered prose,' offering praise to those great, vanished critics who had some 'manners.' By contrast, Warren's reflections gave the lie to Yeats' reflection on a man choosing between the life and the work.

[Nigel Holt]

Tim,

My point was simple - that critics are amusing - Logan, cleverly so. It's his job.

I think the mere fact that he chose Davis's work to critique in his own way, says a lot about the quality of the work. I really don't think that someone who couldn't write good poetry would even be worthy of his attention.

In this case, sarcasm appears to be the highest form of flattery. I don't see any need to defend Dick - his work does that by itself.


Nigel

[Len Krisak]

It's 10:30 and I'm getting ready to go to bed,
so all of this is utterly random, but heartfelt.
It can't possibly summarize the sense of the board,
but...

Richard and Josh (I suspected that was you!)
and Alicia have answered Nigel very well. Logan
loves to store up poison and use it for almost every
review he's ever done. As so many point out, where
are the passionate appreciations and loves in his
poetic gallery?

Yes, seeing Jorie Graham and others skewed is delightful,
but only--does this really need saying?--because her work is very
bad and Dick's very good. Notice that Logan never gives
specific, detailed, practical reasons for his dismissals
of bad OR good poets. Something is very very wrong here
when he can call Dick's work "soulless" and not explain
what the hell that means. As I said to Ruthie, it's an
empty counter, a meaningless critical term with no content--
or as Richard put it, mere taste dressed up in ersatz
critical terminology.

I saw the modifier problem in the monorhyme poem and
pointed it out to a few friends a while ago, but Dick's poem
(and work in general) is virtually unaffected by
Logan's catch of it.

What DOES Logan think of meter? Is it to be "monotonous"
and "determined" in Dick's work and thus dissed, and then Logan gets to turn around and say Wright has extra syllables?

What the hell could that possibly suggest?


Logan exists for one reason only--to be as savage and snotty
as he can possibly be and hope people will notice him and
pay a lot of attention to his work--even as we here on the
Sphere are doing right now. And to answer Tim's point about not
responding in discursive prose to Logan's challenge, well...
a whole essay in practical criticism could be written on
the logical contradictions in his review of Dick.


Ah, NUTS!

Good night to all,

Len

[nyctom]

Sorry, but I have seen people on here be equally snippy and snotty about poetry and forms of poetry they don't like. The double standard is alive and well here.

On the one hand, even bad publicity is publicity, and poetry and poets can use all the publicity they can get--particularly since the vast majority of the media does not recognize the existence of said poetry or poets at all.

On the other, people like William Logan often turn out to be their own worst enemy. Since he is known almost exclusively for snide, condescending reviews, he is also rather easy to dismiss. As in, "Oh well, why bother reading him--we already know what he will say." He is rather like the theater critic John Simon that way.

From what I have read of him, it sounds like Logan wants to be the new Randall Jarrell, but he comes across more like a self-serving, whiny noodge.

[Nigel Holt]

Len,

Your argument is full of the same holes and contradictions that you so acidly accuse Logan of. I suggest you read your post again.

Yes, seeing Jorie Graham and others skewed is delightful

At least Logan was amusing.

Nigel

[Freda Edis]

Reviewers have different styles of critiquing. Logan's a not-so-subtle, though not a ranting polemicist, writing to stir up debate, which he's obviously done here. To be useful to poets, he doesn't have to offer an even-handed approach, which seems to be the implication of a good few crits of him in this thread, though he did offer at least one point in praise of each poet. It also doesn't have to result in a laager mentality among poets. If it does, it means people have lost the wider perspective on what poetry criticism is all about.

Logan is only one type of critic among others who offer different ways of looking at poetry - among them, the sycophantic, disparaging, balanced, polemical, encouraging and wide-sighted. Why bother to pick him off and crit. him in his own style, if that style isn't liked?

Freda