DOGGONE POETICS

For whatever reason, I've been beset of late for Calls to participate in critical readings/analyses of poetry. These editors long for my critical side, something that I tossed aside years ago, indeed, last century (I don't consider my "reviews" in Galatea Resurrects to be criticism, at least criticism in the conventional sense).

Aren't my poems good enough for you people, she sniffs!

Actually, maybe the Calls exist because I've observed that part of the academic-ation of poetry is the rise of the poet-critic's influence. It can't be enough to write a "good" poem since there's no uniformity in that standard. But if you're in a position of analyzing what's good or bad ... or at least interesting and possibly worth reading, you get an imprimatur that writing poems alone might not give you. At least in the short run.

The poet-critic's rise in popularity is not only because of the rise of academic-ation, of course. But I cite such as some of the Calls I get are for texts to be published by university presses -- clearly, with the rise of writing programs come the increased demand for textbooks.

How ... boring. (On a side note, I've read several such anthologies recently populated by the writings of contemporary poets -- no doubt they'll assign the books in their classes, but it's kind of like spinning the wheel for spinning the wheel's sake, which is the dark side of Art for Art's sake...)

But, hey, I'm not here to diss. So after rejecting one Call after another, I gave a 50% acceptance recently to an Invite (primarily coz I like the particular poet-critic-editor-academic who came a callin' for a new critical anthology). Well, and that he observed that "it could be fun" for someone like irreverent Moi to engage in specifically "academic criticism". My immediate response was that it'd be a TOTAL DISASTER.

And because of that immediate response, I said I'd go for it.

I wish Moi wasn't so perverse...or that she left her perversity for sex. Ah well: let's see what happens.

Such of course is one of my primary operating modes for poetry-creation: to see what happens, another being...to amuse Moiself!

And if I happen to save the world along the way, it won't be because of McCrary (wink). Having said that, Jim, these photos are for you: