tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post2465861971711345818..comments2024-02-18T19:36:43.844+11:00Comments on theatre notes: Orstrilia DayAlison Croggonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-22345074555303422672007-02-06T11:20:00.000+11:002007-02-06T11:20:00.000+11:00This is really a waste of time. But I'm in procras...This is really a waste of time. But I'm in procrastination mode, so what the hell.<br /><br />You know, Jens, I know there's a school of paranoid criticism, and I'm loathe to say a reading of a poem is plain wrong: but sometimes a tyger is just a tyger. If you're going to go all sexual about it - always a distinct possibility with Blake - this poem is, if anything, a celebration of <i>masculine</Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-21797790688593080482007-02-06T07:12:00.000+11:002007-02-06T07:12:00.000+11:00You should get out more, Jens. Such things as coup...You should get out more, Jens. Such things as couples who are equal exist; out in the real world, it's not just men from mars and women from venus. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to step outside the roles determined by others and work out better ways to relate. And yes, I have two sons and a husband, none of whom feel in the least emasculated. Though it might be better to ask them about it,Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-87337388672340390742007-02-05T07:12:00.000+11:002007-02-05T07:12:00.000+11:00It's Patrick McCauley who offers the free vasectom...It's Patrick McCauley who offers the free vasectomy, Jens. And feminism is only castrating in the minds of some paranoid men who don't seem to understand what "equal" or "difference" mean.Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-83727899148379862972007-02-04T10:10:00.000+11:002007-02-04T10:10:00.000+11:00Jens, for the love of God, rethink the vasectomy.Jens, for the love of God, rethink the vasectomy.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-47711230834242233032007-02-04T02:36:00.000+11:002007-02-04T02:36:00.000+11:00I wonder what poetry you read? I don't think Yeats...I wonder what poetry you read? I don't think Yeats or Rilke or Pound or Rimbaud or Hill or Lorca or doing bowls of fruit.<br /><br />Like any art, poetry has its craft. This fails on even the most basic levels of poetic craft. It happens to be my art, so broad as my tastes are, perhaps I find that more excruciating than others might. But maybe in the end I agree with Eliot; more than anything Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-39330073690873646052007-02-01T04:29:00.000+11:002007-02-01T04:29:00.000+11:00That was truly disturbing... I wasn't aware that s...That was truly disturbing... I wasn't aware that so much of Australia in 2006 was about a struggle for masculinity! How entirely feminine of me.. sigh, I guess us women are just the cancer that is eatting at the heart of Australia. Well, women and the working class who are now rich, oh, and the Aboriginals. <br /><br />You have to wonder what kind of Australia is Patrick McCauley longing for?Laurenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04383410095341069034noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-38351413941710606342007-01-30T08:39:00.000+11:002007-01-30T08:39:00.000+11:00PS Thanks Rachel - incomprehension and bafflement ...PS Thanks Rachel - incomprehension and bafflement seem to be general responses. It sure does poetry no good. I ought to make clear that obviously the Australian's poetry editor, Barry Hill, had nothing to do with it; it was on the news page, not the literary pages. If I were him, I'd be furious.Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-75272413907162606492007-01-30T07:21:00.000+11:002007-01-30T07:21:00.000+11:00Yes, Gabriele, I removed your last comment. Now yo...Yes, Gabriele, I removed your last comment. Now you've taken off your cloak of invisibility, I still can't see what you're offering to this argument. There is a difference between attacking an argument and ad hominem attack. I see no reason why I should put up with the latter.<br /><br />I don't think the appellation "fuckwit" is in the least inappropriate, given its context and what precedes it.Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-6804965988976967712007-01-30T01:02:00.000+11:002007-01-30T01:02:00.000+11:00Alison, I think that may have been my post you rem...Alison, I think that may have been my post you removed yesterday. In case, if it's because I was anonymous, here it is again (below). Or is it because it's critical of you? In any case, I'm glad to see you formulated a "more considered response" to Patrick McCauley at Sarsaparilla. Why not let my comment here go up and respond by owning up to the inappropriateness of calling a peer a fuckwit?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-83215648973175093922007-01-29T16:33:00.000+11:002007-01-29T16:33:00.000+11:00So glad it's not just me who read that "poem" and ...So glad it's not just me who read that "poem" and thought, "What the ...?" I don't pretend to be an expert on poetry but that offering was mind-bogglingly, gut-wrenchingly awful. Most of it makes no sense: eg. <i> We apply homosexual moralities to heterosexual families </i> - the what now? The only reason I wasn't as offended as I otherwise would have been had the sentiments been expressed more Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-6541062679460232662007-01-29T09:09:00.000+11:002007-01-29T09:09:00.000+11:00Thanks, George. Nick, I ran a listserv for 10 year...Thanks, George. Nick, I ran a listserv for 10 years, still run a message board, and have been a member of many others, and I've seen all this before. Your behaviour is recognisable to the point of cliche, and it is classic trolling. If you don't believe me, google some psychology papers on behaviour in cyberspace. And yes, this is my blog. It is a place for argument, even robust argument, but notAlison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-89319901080487658432007-01-29T01:36:00.000+11:002007-01-29T01:36:00.000+11:00Ironies need to be capable of discernment to be re...Ironies need to be capable of discernment to be recognized, Nick, and I don't really think that's the case here. Nor do I think you meant to be ironic at all, regardless of this rhetorical back-tracking. Your quasi-romantic characterization of such a clearly vindictive, bigoted (not to say tone-deaf) poem, such as it is, as a "beautiful loser" and your comparison of it to Strindberg's explorationAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-55899901438697149602007-01-29T00:20:00.000+11:002007-01-29T00:20:00.000+11:00I am not writing to the crude and humorless reader...I am not writing to the crude and humorless reader here. I assume a subtle reader able to discern ironies. So as rich as it is in it’s own irony, I’ll allow this statement of Alison’s to stand without comment: <br /><br />“It's you Americans who misspell "patronising". Some of us think it a rather infantile misspelling.”<br /><br />Alison, please tell me exactly how close am I to being branded aAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-91937806649639194002007-01-28T15:05:00.000+11:002007-01-28T15:05:00.000+11:00I didn't think I would leave a comment, having not...I didn't think I would leave a comment, having nothing more insightful to say than that I am appalled, and so is my boyfriend: together we barely managed to read that rant of self-pity and hatred. But now I am worried about the lack of published response to it; I was expecting an outrage. The 'poem' is enormously similar to 'poems' I've seen published - again in newspapers, occasionally in books Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-34878573190989449612007-01-28T14:53:00.000+11:002007-01-28T14:53:00.000+11:00By which I mean, Ms Greer can't help you. She is q...By which I mean, Ms Greer can't help you. She is quite capable, of course, of making very clear distinctions.Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-72121257992366802007-01-28T14:06:00.000+11:002007-01-28T14:06:00.000+11:00Nick, I will tell you now that personal abuse is n...Nick, I will tell you now that personal abuse is not welcome here, and that any such posts will be deleted. And you are coming perilously close to trolling here.<br /><br />Over here, it's you Americans who misspell "patronising". Some of us think it a rather infantile misspelling, like mispronouncing the letter "zed" as "zee", but we're tolerant and put up with it. And I'm Australian, not Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-50352067896668618722007-01-28T13:56:00.000+11:002007-01-28T13:56:00.000+11:00“There has come into existence… a breed of men who...“There has come into existence… a breed of men who claim to be feminists. They imagine that they have understood “what women want” and that they are capable of giving it to them. They help with the dishes at home and make their own coffee in the office, basking the while in the refulgent consciousness of virtue. . . . Such men are apt to think of the true male feminists as utterly chauvinistic… Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-49480264570915558902007-01-28T11:54:00.000+11:002007-01-28T11:54:00.000+11:00Daniel Keene wrote his letter - something he rarel...Daniel Keene wrote his letter - something he rarely does - because he thought the poem was as offensive about <i>men</i> as it is about women. He told me that he thought it important that men protested, since the complaints of women might to be too easily dismissed as those of whinging feminist slags. I don't think it has been published. <br /><br />(And why is my being a poet of no relevance? MyAlison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-6750381885938526062007-01-28T11:08:00.000+11:002007-01-28T11:08:00.000+11:00Alison,
This is a bad poem!!! How many times do ...Alison,<br /><br />This is a bad poem!!! How many times do I need to I say that before it's acknowledged that I have said it!!! What kind of fuckwitteryism allows you to continue to write to me as if I did not say “this a bad poem.”<br /><br />And of course Germaine Greer would also find this a bad poem. But she also would not find any misogyny in it. Quite the opposite.<br /><br />I am ONLY Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-22876681213285636622007-01-28T09:44:00.000+11:002007-01-28T09:44:00.000+11:00Wowee. Thanks Sylvia, for saying the things I woul...Wowee. Thanks Sylvia, for saying the things I would have said. Nick, Strindberg this ain't. Didn't you see the bits about how bad a piece of writing it is? Or can't you tell? The general reaction among poets (I do know a few, as well as being one myself - look me up), men <i>and</i> women, is dismay. One asked - seriously - if McCauley was being set up by the newspaper to make a fool of him and Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-84144064774213799212007-01-28T08:37:00.000+11:002007-01-28T08:37:00.000+11:00. . .And here I had come back with the idea just o.... . .And here I had come back with the idea just of clarifying what my first comment might have implied--noting that I don't actually think Americans are fuckwits, or that Alison thinks Aussies are fuckwits, but just that the frustration of seeing appalling ideas presented as the <i>authentic</i> (insert nationality here) was something I could relate to.<br /><br />All right, Nick, I subjected Sylvia Drakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16021429676492233058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-162718913147411462007-01-28T01:58:00.000+11:002007-01-28T01:58:00.000+11:00Sylvia, don't bother putting the excerpts in conte...Sylvia, don't bother putting the excerpts in context by actually reading the poem. Nothing would change your obvious prejudice here. And I wouldn’t dare challenge your opinion; I acknowledge your renowned expertise in fuckwittery. <br /><br />This is a bad poem. So what? There are so many bad poems in the world; one more isn't going to sink us. We are all only reading it (and now rereading it)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-4112051585503738242007-01-27T19:03:00.000+11:002007-01-27T19:03:00.000+11:00My goodness, that certainly is an appaling load of...My goodness, that certainly is an appaling load of racist, misogynistic, homophobic garbage. (Judging by the excerpts you've posted, at least; I think I will assume those are representative samples and spare myself the rest of the "poem".)<br /><br />I have little of help to offer but my sympathies--I too, living across the pond, am familiar with the experience of feeling at times that one lives Sylvia Drakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16021429676492233058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-45705853100958092712007-01-27T16:42:00.000+11:002007-01-27T16:42:00.000+11:00That is a truly bad piece of writing. For me it's...That is a truly bad piece of writing. For me it's not far from the realm of Bec Hewitt's wedding poem to Lleyton. Without the artistry of course.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7202906.post-14234635986872450452007-01-27T11:31:00.000+11:002007-01-27T11:31:00.000+11:00I agree that it's just awful, on so many levels. ...I agree that it's just awful, on so many levels. <br /><br />And I've never understood why advocating fatherhood is so often premised on hating mothers. Why?Kirstyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14035268080440921379noreply@blogger.com