Strange Reviews

July 31, 2005

I love Texfiles and if I kept a Jim Behrle style crush-list, Chris Murray would be right there near the top… but I have to confess that I don’t understand the imbroglio on her blog surrounding the review of Kent Johnson’s new book.

I’d already seen the review (and I am mightily resisting the urge to put the word review in quotes here) on a mailing list. I read part of it and finally stopped reading because it was clear that this was going to be one of those pieces that didn’t really engage the poetry in question and– here I have to agree with Gary Sullivan– it took a hectoring, bullying tone that is always quick to turn me off.

I expect a review to tell me something about the poems themselves (which this review does not), not attempt a clairvoyant analysis at my failings as a person if I don’t. “Reviling or ignoring” Kent isn’t necessarily because of his ability to “make us uncomfortably aware of our own pretensions.” That kind of condescension irritates me even though I DON’T ignore his work. Not to mention further characterizations of those who “throw around the term fascist at the drop of a hat” or are “prideful bag men and women for a Christ whose teachings they have perverted.”

The problem here is simple: whatever it was Chris Danielson wrote, it wasn’t a review. It was part polemic and part homage… and all about his friend Kent (ironic given that Chris seems to understand the idea of fetishism). There’s not a word about the poetry other than a lot of meaningless abstraction that serves only to reinforce the idea that Chris loves Kent and– by extension– Kent’s work. Please, show me ANYTHING concrete in that piece about the poems themselves! I defy you to find one meaningful statement about the poetry by which a reader who hasn’t yet read them could get any idea what these poems are all about. There are the seeds of an interesting analysis of the poetry here, and certainly a moving bulletin board post about one’s friend… but not much of a review.

At any rate, I think Gary Sullivan’s being unfairly ganged up on here. Given the pieces that I’ve seen so far, though, you shouldn’t let that– or the useless “review”– keep them from reading the book and deciding for themselves. And hopefully, for the sake of the rest of us, one of those people will post a real review!

Tags: Poetry and Poetics