POETICKS

Amy King on 18 February at New-Poetry said, “Criticism gets a bad rap, and representation, at New Poetry today. It’s either ‘rosy country club swings’ or Bob’s version of insult and make-believe designed to garner attention.” About this, I asked her, “Why is this not an insult, however little it bothers me? My posts here, very few of them pieces of criticism, and a much lower percentage of which are insulting than is true of yours, are designed to express my opinions. Sure, I want people to attend to them, as I would think any poster would, but almost entirely in the hopes of getting interesting responses, negative or positive. And what in the world is ‘make-believe’ about them? Do you ever support your assertions with data? Do you ever answer questions about your assertions?” This finally made her try, however incompetently. Note that she takes me to be complaining about being insulted when I was merely pointing out that how insulting she herself was, in which case it didn’t make much sense for her to be criticizing me for insults. I of course am about as little bothered by insults as it’s possible to be.

I feel bad about posting what follows. The data she throws together to indict me it ridiculously out of context and hard to follow. I’m not even sure wsia what in some of the passages. And I doubt many will find it of any interest. But I just can’t think of anything else to stick you with. And it does nicely exemplify somewhat interestingly certain varieties of propagandistic irrationality–and how I was taken by some for the scholars of the future sure to be interested in me.  Or Amy King.  They may be interested in how poets interacted in our time. 

Amy may have caught me being stupid once or twice, which wouldn’t have been hard, but I can’t tell from what little “evidence” she supplies to be sure.   And, last but most, the whole thing is rilly dum–BUT, a horrible weakness of mine is that  I enjoy getting entangled in and participating to just about the last gasp in such affairs.  Okay, here’s Amy:

Bob,

Since I am not sitting online for hours on end (& have to leave for a Sat night reading), I have little time to support my assertions with a ton of data. But I will offer some easily-located choice items to put things into perspective. First, I would ask anyone seeking such data to simply count the ad nauseum number of posts by “Bob Grumman” in the archives linked at the bottom of every email. It’s as though we’ve walked into a room and there’s that one guy who insists on setting forth the loudest and most frequently to advance his “agenda,” even though his is not the only one in the room.

Bob, when do you ever engage others in any way that isn’t shaped by your own blindered view of “Wishberia” and where everyone’s work “fits” in relation to that fake school or movement or whatever it is? When? And anyone who dares to point out the absurdity of these sweeping, gross generalizations and your need to situate everyone’s work in that box is either, in your repetitious and limited name-calling fashion, a “moron” or an “idiot.” Historically and presently. You berate everyone to death with your overbearing need to be heard and heard only on your terms. All other concepts and terms are idiotic, just as anyone imploring you to be considerate (i.e. consider someone else’s ideas respectfully) to be “hypersensitives” or mockery. Why should people who lurk bother engaging you? You can only hear through your own filter and damn everyone else’s claims.

Meta: Your claim to not care about the way people engage in this listserv community, about behavior, means not being accountable for your own. The way you go about haranguing everyone into submission is with transparent tactics such as sheer volume, phony compliments or nasty characterizations. Even now, you have gone non-stop for the past 24 hours as the “insulted victim” – Bob, who historically insults poets on the list and poets not on the list, via his “critical” assertions, suddenly asks for considerations as the insulted martyr? Please.

This guy (ed. note: Dan Schneider, who–I’m afraid–would trash Amy worse than he trashed me) undertakes the tedious job of dissecting your tactics – http://www.cosmoetica.com/D33-DES24.htm I don’t have the patience to read through the whole thing as I am quite familiar with such tactics via this listserv.

Now for a selection, in no particular order, via a cursory search based on one of Bob’s typical “characterizations” as recently posted in the last 24 hours in a message I simply don’t have time to find (having deleted most of “Bob Grumman’s” emails), of “moron” with your name. I don’t have time to search for more, though the ‘data’ is available in abundance for anyone who cares to waste a year of his or her life that they will never get back, wading through the “Bob” posts in the archives. These cut and pastes illustrate the aforementioned pattern, esp as the loudest, most insistent and attention-seeking voice sets the tone in a room, like it or not (and ways he determines on what terms anything should be discussed):

I never said that no insult bothers me, at all.  One that does, however slightly, is a reference to what I do at New-Poetry as ”tactics.”  Amy seems to think I’m carrying out some kind of carefully planned power play. Sure, if that covers wanting one’s opinions heard and discussed. Of course, the description is not new: I’ve forever being accused of trying to force poets to compose my kind of poetry because of my attempts to define various kinds of poetry–and non-poetry.  On the other, I guess I would like to be Lord-High-King of New-Poetry. . . .  Enough.  Here’s Amy, again:

Bob Grumman: … Marcus’s near-impregnible blockheadedness …

***TALK ONLY ON BOB’S TERMS – EVERYTHING ELSE IS IRRELEVANT TO HIS WORLDVIEW (AND REQUIRES INSULT TO DISMISS) (ed. note, I assume this is Amy’s careful characterization of me):

I once directed you to my taxonomy when you were telling me how bad a taxonomist I was (without, of course, indulging in name-calling). I challenged you to tell me what was wrong with it. You never did.

Against a moron like you, Marcus, yes.

Bob Grumman: Out of curiosity, Marcus, just what makes you think you’re not a blockhead?

Ah, the name-calling again. Is this really the very best you can do, Bob, to defend your views?  (ed. note: I assume this is Marcus but it could be Amy; none of my opponents seems to think I’m able to defend my views with anything other than name-calling.)

 Okay, I’ve had it it, Marcus. I only kept this thing going because I’m much more interested in psychopathology than I am in convincing morons of the value of my taxonomy, but your brand of verosopathology is too much, even for me, to endure indefinitely. 

 

His methods’ only problem is the morons who call those methods “an absurdity.” > >–Bob G.> >And once again the very best you’re capable of is name-calling,>apparently. How sad.>>Which makes Grumman the pre-eminent verosopath since he is always determined to destroy any discussion. Not to mention the pattern and habit of his consistent name-calling, which seems to be what he >conceives to be reasoned discussion.> > > > (ed. note: I have no idea who here is saying what; the bits slamming me seem too stupid for Marcus.)

 

YE OLDE STANDBY: MOCKERY – (ed. note, Yes, I think the caps are Amy.)

You mean it’s not a gender issue? Gad, Mark, do you ever need your consciousness raised! Mathematics is both sexist and racist, as Dove quite properly realizes. –Bob

AD HOM -

Mycroft, I have never seen a person so proud of his ignorance.
The key is inference, David. As I explained. Another good thing to try to learn is reading with some degree of understanding. –Bob

I’M NOT A CRITIC HERE, NO I AM A CRITIC HERE -

I almost always, as here, speak from the poet/critic’s point of view… (ed. note: this may be me being stupid, but I suspect I clearly meant, possibly explicitly meant by “here” as something like “when discussing a poem.”) –Bob

A BIT SANTORUM ON WOMEN:

> Please, Bob, do tell. How exactly is Bret a horrible name? Does it seem contrived? What’s the issue? –Jeff Newberry

 Jeff, I never had my consciousness raised, so I think boys and girls are innately different. Bret Harte was not a woman. I don’t like harsh names for women, even ones that are traditionally for females like “Betty.” –Bob

Oh, that’s rich — Grumman complaining about someone else name-calling.

POT CALLING THE KETTLE …

I’m merely high-temperaturedly suggesting that if we want to discuss what poetry is, we shouldn’t use terms dependent, as this one seems to be but may not (enlighten me if not), on vague terms based on subjective feelings. –Bob G.

IRONIC? SPEAK ONLY ON “WILSHBOOBLIA’S” TERMS! (ed. note, terms which she has never critiqued, just denigrated.)

How is this not pure bullshit? Like just about all descriptions of poetry by poets. 

 WHERE HAVE I HEARD THAT FAVORED VOCABULARY BEFORE:

Mistaken about what, Marcus? Something specific or only that I don’t go along with the mystification of poetics by just too-ethereally-sensitive ignoramuses and propagandists of unreason. (ed. note, Marcus, I’m pretty sure, was claiming poetry could not be defined.)

LOCATING THE DATA IS EASY. TOO EASY. GOOD NIGHT.

--Amy King

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Dating Oregon

On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 11:30 AM, stephen russell wrote, “ I fail to see what’s offensive in the following construction” (the first version of my motto as a poetry critic), to which Chris Lott replied:

The offensiveness–a non-productive offensiveness I might add, since contrary to Bob’s belief, those of us who object to his drive-by shootings to understand that criticism can be hard and productive–comes in two flavors: 1) we know what Bob means, from his copious examples on this list, by “committed to the advance of poetry,” which really means “committed to the advance of Bob’s agenda,” and 2) such a formulation leaves no room for a variety of things poetry does for, I’d bet, most readers, but at least a healthy part of them.

Criticism can be many things without being offensive, though such offense is a different thing if honestly a part of assessment rather than agenda. The mere presence of offensiveness, which you seem to think necessary in criticism (what is criticism if it doesn’t offend?), seems a rather shallow approach given that criticism can come in many modes, not least of which is illumination. What is criticism without giving offense? Who knows? In the absence of example it could be utter shit or it could be something really useful to a reader or it could light up something dark or it could make a convincing case about problems, etc.

But Bob and the Bob(Ap)Ologists take the predictable routes of 1) casting the debate as a zero-sum game, and 2) creating straw-men of the other side and its arguments, such as those objecting to Bob’s jingoistic propaganda must think criticism has to be all sweetness and light. The lack of any appreciation of nuance or that there might be diverse opinions about what the “advance of poetry” means is offensive.

Someone I don’t remember reading at New-Poetry before, W.F. Lantry, then chipped in:

Chris,

Well said! Came across this little gem from Cervantes the other day. Don’t know why I thought of it when reading Bob’s mission statement:

“Modesty, tis a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.”

Or this one, from the same source:

“From reading too much, and sleeping too little, his brain dried up on him and he lost his judgment.”

Thanks, Bill

Wilsons Leather