| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Nicholas Liu |
Posted - 21 Jan 2005 : 04:19:31
Splintered is one thing but spotty is another. Cyril Wong's 'The Difficulty' pulled me in with its first line. By the end of the first stanza I was prepared for another solid poem on more or less the same thing as always. By the end of the second stanza I realised with surprise that it was a sestina; by the end of the third I suspected that Cyril Wong would not, sadly, go down in history as the first poet to think of seven interesting uses for the word 'tears'; and by the end of it all I was proven correct. I can't properly say it's time wasted--an interesting effect of the form was that it left me feeling as though I'd read an entire new collection of solid poems on more or less the same thing as always rather than just one such poem.
More surprising than the inclusion of one poem of uneven quality is the inclusion of two poems of wildly differing qualities. I would think this easier to pick out and less of a dilemma to deal with. I'm talking about how Michael Fessler's unusually successful poem about language doesn't belong in the same issue or even magazine as Gan See Siong's (somewhat) similarly themed, formulaic waste of headspace. Title X + epigraph Y on the theme of X + poem on X building toward the pronouncement that the opposite of Y is true = yet another poem as exciting as a chain email. Joy.
Even worse is the essay by Farah Aida, which seems to follow every rule of Junior College GP essay-writing, from the title ('Things do not change; we change') all the way down to the word count. If I were a marker I'd be having multiple orgasms right now, but sadly I'm only a reader, and so at the end of this masturbation session--812 words and about thirty stock phrases later--I'm only left feeling sleepy and in need of a bath. I can't decide if I ought to be disappointed or glad that there aren't any other essays in this issue.
The criticism is better. Toh Hsien Min's reviewing is engaging as usual, making two apparent failures sound interesting enough to be worth a shot, if not the tab for the shot; I only wish he'd reviewed idea to ideal instead of Leonard Ng, who jackhammers home the point that the book should have been something other than it is without giving the reader any real sense of what, in fact, it is. Yes, it is interesting but not compelling, useful but not important. I could have gathered that from a simple '5/10--Quite Okay Really'. Now tell me something about the book.
Two bright spots: the fiction, both examples of which are written in styles that could so easily be twee but instead are charming, and the Extra Media section, the thoroughness and precision of which would be remarkable if all three reviews weren't by the same person.
Not a bad issue, but lacking (as I suspect Farah Aida might put it) synergy--it could have been so much more. |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| n/a |
Posted - 18 Aug 2005 : 04:12:01
What else can i do with it? [8]
|
| Nicholas Liu |
Posted - 17 Feb 2005 : 00:35:23
Sadly you are too big and gruff a goat for me. <g> |
| alf |
Posted - 16 Feb 2005 : 22:19:21
quote:
Originally posted by Nicholas Liu
The delay in my reply was due to difficulty in finding something in there to disagree with. I have since given up. =)
you are SUCH a troll ;)) |
| Nicholas Liu |
Posted - 16 Feb 2005 : 18:56:01
The delay in my reply was due to difficulty in finding something in there to disagree with. I have since given up. =) |
| alf |
Posted - 11 Feb 2005 : 11:23:29
quote:
Originally posted by Nicholas Liu
Alvin: quote:
We know these works exist because they were sent in only upon solicitation (by the NORA project team, for instance).
Yes; my point is that it isn't due to an atmosphere of prevalent solicitation that these pieces weren't submitted earlier, which was what you claimed would happen ('the possibility of writers of quality waiting to be solicited instead of freely submitting good work'). If the example of Thumboo supports this claim, I do not see how.
-- There was an open call for submissions (for NORA) among published writers. It was ignored by many who received it but waited to be asked instead.
quote:
I'm not so inclined to scrutinise the motivations of such things. As far as I can tell, what's going on in HCJC is genuinely noteworthy as a(n unusually active) cross-section of the state of student writing. It doesn't matter to me how Softblow came to feature their writing.
-- I completely agree in this specific instance. But you were asking about the potential pitfalls of solicitation.
quote:
But the literary traditions that have thrown up the Heaneys and Muldoons and Ann Carsons has also given us poetry.com and more scammers and hacks than we can name...
Yes, of course, and these also do their poetry scenes various amounts of harm.
-- they are an inevitable part of any ecology.
quote:
. . . even though I'd have liked a lot more discernment and editorial discipline at the book publication stage of a writer's career.
I agree, but then again, what one person sees as a necessary flensing of fat from a manuscript, others (and particularly, I'd think, the writer!) might see as 'slash-editing'.
-- yes, and that's why picking only "A+" material is so dangerous when there's no alternative bucket.
quote:
I think it may not have had the same impact had it come out later. Of course, this sort of speculation on possible futures isn't too productive--and at any rate I'm inclined to agree with you that <i>One Fierce Hour</i> would have been better uncut (not having read the cut poems, but based off <i>A History of Amnesia</i>, where I preferred the more personal poems).
-- the original manuscripts came by me, but another publisher got there first based on a personal recommendation/endorsement by an established writer (whom I shall not name).
[quote]they are now aprocrypha[sp] lor...
Any idea why they didn't go into the second book?
-- didn't fit with the overall arc of the 2nd book.
|
| Nicholas Liu |
Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 21:33:06
Oh, and happy CNY, all. |
| Nicholas Liu |
Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 21:32:15
Alvin: quote:
We know these works exist because they were sent in only upon solicitation (by the NORA project team, for instance).
Yes; my point is that it isn't due to an atmosphere of prevalent solicitation that these pieces weren't submitted earlier, which was what you claimed would happen ('the possibility of writers of quality waiting to be solicited instead of freely submitting good work'). If the example of Thumboo supports this claim, I do not see how.
quote:
Yup. Or an archival project like say NORA - ie. museum/gallery type places.
Or like Softblow? Point taken, I guess.
quote:
yes, but the choice of feature is arbitrary (or rather, dependent on the editor's personal connections) rather than what is [more, genuinely, generally] newsworthy. You see the difference? If QLRS were to suddenly do a feature on performance poetry because it was a genuinely noteworthy trend in contemporary literary development, that's fine. But if it's only because the editor just got hooked up with a Slam Poet goth chick and her friends...
I'm not so inclined to scrutinise the motivations of such things. As far as I can tell, what's going on in HCJC is genuinely noteworthy as a(n unusually active) cross-section of the state of student writing. It doesn't matter to me how Softblow came to feature their writing.
quote:
But the literary traditions that have thrown up the Heaneys and Muldoons and Ann Carsons has also given us poetry.com and more scammers and hacks than we can name...
Yes, of course, and these also do their poetry scenes various amounts of harm.
quote:
It's a bit late for that I'm afraid.
I suppose it's a bit of a naive hope in any case.
quote:
Well, your A+ grade publishing houses DO expect to see certain credentials before they will publish -- less so the journals. Our scene is still too young for that sort of snobbery. Which is a GOOD thing, really. . . .
Definitely.
quote:
. . . even though I'd have liked a lot more discernment and editorial discipline at the book publication stage of a writer's career.
I agree, but then again, what one person sees as a necessary flensing of fat from a manuscript, others (and particularly, I'd think, the writer!) might see as 'slash-editing'.
quote:
well because we're a cult of personality. If you think about it, journals collect work across a broader span of interests and tastes (if you don't like page 4, turn to page 7). With individual books, you have to really like the writer to invest. Again, I do think the indiv collections here ought to be tighter than they tend to be.
I suppose there's also the fact that with magazines, once you get it past the editor, you don't really have to worry about how well it's received by readers; no one's buying the magazine (or reading it online) *because* it has your one poem in it, you don't get royalties if they do, and if it doesn't appeal to them, they'll probably have forgetten about it by the next issue anyway. . . .
quote:
You're assuming the material would not have been included by another more discerning publisher..... Put it this way: he didn't stick with the same publisher between books did he?
I think it may not have had the same impact had it come out later. Of course, this sort of speculation on possible futures isn't too productive--and at any rate I'm inclined to agree with you that <i>One Fierce Hour</i> would have been better uncut (not having read the cut poems, but based off <i>A History of Amnesia</i>, where I preferred the more personal poems).
quote:
they are now aprocrypha[sp] lor...
Any idea why they didn't go into the second book?
quote:
and what I put to you is that some of the compromises we've chosen to make are in the interest of these other conditions.
That much has been clear from the beginning. Where I've been disagreeing is the issue of whether the trade-off is worthwhile, or at least whether it can be worthwhile to <i>not</i> make that trade-off (as a matter of general practice; of course it's your zine/journal/e-anthology to run as you see fit).
I think that as Hsien Min said, this is getting circular, so I'm not going to bang on about that any more than I already have. |
| alf |
Posted - 06 Feb 2005 : 14:53:50
quote:
Yes, but recall that your argument was that regular soliciting will create an atmosphere where established writers would rather wait to be asked than submit work of their own accord. This example does not support your claim as it doesn't in any way point to the prevalence of solicitation as its cause.
-- We know these works exist because they were sent in only upon solicitation (by the NORA project team, for instance).
quote:
I can understand why you'd say that (if after all a journal *should* by its nature be focussed on *current* developments in writing), but what would a good platform be, in your opinion? An anthology, I guess?
=== Yup. Or an archival project like say NORA - ie. museum/gallery type places.
quote:
Eh, I wouldn't have seen any problem with it if QLRS had run that feature instead. You can't fit everyone into the spotlight at the same time; running a feature on a particular literary group that's noteworthy in some way isn't, IMHO, at odds with the goals of 'a more general journal' at all. Quite the opposite.
-- yes, but the choice of feature is arbitrary (or rather, dependent on the editor's personal connections) rather than what is [more, genuinely, generally] newsworthy. You see the difference? If QLRS were to suddenly do a feature on performance poetry because it was a genuinely noteworthy trend in contemporary literary development, that's fine. But if it's only because the editor just got hooked up with a Slam Poet goth chick and her friends...
quote:
I think it does some tiny amount of harm by making local literature look a bit laughable at times. quote:
-- But the literary traditions that have thrown up the Heaneys and Muldoons and Ann Carsons has also given us poetry.com and more scammers and hacks than we can name...
quote:
I hope we can leave behind the side-effect of turning the publication of a collection into something akin to an RPG--
--- It's a bit late for that I'm afraid. I think you'll find that your Foyle label for instance is already opening some doors for you. (Charisma + 1; +5 against scholarship committees; Cure Light Obscurity 3x a week).
quote:
The one thing I *like* about the current weakness of the journal scene (relative to elsewhere) is how as a consequence, editors don't expect to see a quintillion publishing credits before you have a shot.
-- Well, your A+ grade publishing houses DO expect to see certain credentials before they will publish -- less so the journals. Our scene is still too young for that sort of snobbery. Which is a GOOD thing, really, even though I'd have liked a lot more discernment and editorial discipline at the book publication stage of a writer's career.
quote:
Point taken. Strange, though, that writer-specific books should house the material of most interest to a general audience (the 'best-ofs'), while journals house the work that's of more interest (I'd think) to readers with a particular interest in the writer, incidental work, experiments and all.
-- well because we're a cult of personality. If you think about it, journals collect work across a broader span of interests and tastes (if you don't like page 4, turn to page 7). With individual books, you have to really like the writer to invest. Again, I do think the indiv collections here ought to be tighter than they tend to be.
quote:
I'm not saying it's better off cut, but it does appear to have been better off released cut than not released at all.
-- -- You're assuming the material would not have been included by another more discerning publisher..... Put it this way: he didn't stick with the same publisher between books did he?
quote:
What exactly has happened to the 'lost works'?
-- they are now aprocrypha[sp] lor...
quote:
What I'm saying is that in creating the conditions that result in high-quality work, inspirational examples of conspicuous excellence alone are not enough (even if they are perhaps useful to some).
I never said it was enough, generally speaking.p
-- and what I put to you is that some of the compromises we've chosen to make are in the interest of these other conditions.
quote:
It's difficult to disagree with your points on infrastructure and dirty work, but what precisely is the role of 2nd-nth tier talents in the pyramid (other than of hopefully moving up to become first-tier talents)? I'm not claiming there isn't any other role; I'm just unclear on what it is.
-- A few crude non-exhaustive examples:
1. aspiring poets buy other poets' books, expanding the market.
2. aspiring poets pay for workshops, readings, MFAs in Creative Writing etc., giving other (presumably better) poets a means of making a living.
3. aspiring poets support the general infrastructure through readership, subscription, support and their own networks. A 2nd tier poet who's a 1st tier lawyer/banker/property consultant can work wonders for the community. Just look at that US$100 Mil donation to Poetry magazine....
4. Even 2nd tier writers can have readable/publishable/newsworthy work on occasion.
Loo, the same thing happens in politics. Out of 100+ parliamentarians, perhaps only a handful are the real movers and shakers. The rest make up the (necessary) critical mass just by showing up.
[quote] Of course, whether it's Alfian or anyone else who causes this awakening in a particular young writer is besides the point. It's not a personality thing.
-- well the Thumboos and Lee Tzu Phengs have done that for the people of their time and continue to do so. Even if they may not be A+...
[quote]
Your candour is refreshing. I'm certainly not advocating that you take such an approach (as I've stated, I dropped prescriptiveness early in the thread), especially since, if I'm reading you right, you don't get as many submissions you consider instant-yes/A+ as QLRS does as it is.
-- The absolute number of instant A+ poems from Singapore I'd admit to is a really really small number... so I realise in the course of this discussion, that really, I've been obliged to pursue different editorial goals instead....
|
| Nicholas Liu |
Posted - 06 Feb 2005 : 04:05:42
Alvin: quote:
Just about all the recently published work by senior writers such as E Thumboo were solicited. ET's work at least has been sitting around for a while... So yes, it happens.
Yes, but recall that your argument was that regular soliciting will create an atmosphere where established writers would rather wait to be asked than submit work of their own accord. This example does not support your claim as it doesn't in any way point to the prevalence of solicitation as its cause.
quote:
Now, the argument might be, is it not better for their work to be made available by someone asking for it? The answer is yes. Does that mean a journal like QLRS is the best platform to solicit such work? I'd say not...
I can understand why you'd say that (if after all a journal *should* by its nature be focussed on *current* developments in writing), but what would a good platform be, in your opinion? An anthology, I guess?
quote:
and inviting is not *soliciting*, really. I think we're all agreed that
a. a general friendly invitation to submit for consideration without obligation is prob ok.
b. however we don't want to have to do that for every piece in every issue.
I think it's a strange definition that wouldn't include that as a form of soliciting, but I suppose it's immaterial whether we call it an apple or an orange so long as we agree that it's acceptable eating.
And yes, I do agree with both a and b.
quote:
nothing wrong with that. but it begs the question, why HCJC vs RJC or AJC or SAJC etc. etc. It's perfectly ok since Softblow is a private gallery -- which does not have the same cultural/social obligations as a more general journal such as one with the espoused goals of QLRS.
Eh, I wouldn't have seen any problem with it if QLRS had run that feature instead. You can't fit everyone into the spotlight at the same time; running a feature on a particular literary group that's noteworthy in some way isn't, IMHO, at odds with the goals of 'a more general journal' at all. Quite the opposite.
(Which, just to anticipate any misunderstanding, isn't the same as me saying that QLRS should have run it, or should run similar features in future.)
quote:
but will it do HARM tho? The presence of and accolades heaped onto the likes of Lim Hsin Hsin (and some other brand-name poets I could mention) have not necessarily stifled the poetry scene either.
I think it does some tiny amount of harm by making local literature look a bit laughable at times. That's not my point, though, which is that 'journal publication. . . and ultimately one's own collection' is not sufficient as 'something to aim for'.
quote:
Agree of course. The general route for a career poet really is through journals (and a variety of them) to build presence, credibility and readership. Go look at the volumes by your Heaneys and Muldoons -- a good percentage of the pieces are acknowledged as having first appeared in journals.
Yes, of course. As a bit of an aside, though, while I would like to see the credibility of local journals (both as markets and as sources for reading material) continue to increase, I hope we can leave behind the side-effect of turning the publication of a collection into something akin to an RPG--
POEM IN PLOUGHSHARES x 2
+2,474 CRED
YOU HAVE REACHED LVL. 8 POETASTER! *tinny chime*
NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: GETTING PAST FIRST READER AT RANDOM HOUSE
--that sort of thing. The one thing I *like* about the current weakness of the journal scene (relative to elsewhere) is how as a consequence, editors don't expect to see a quintillion publishing credits before you have a shot. (Of course, since I haven't had a collection published or submitted one for consideration, this may be a naive perception on my part.)
quote:
Books collect the "best-ofs", and of course offer a certain coherence as a volume. But that means that journals also have a role as a platform for incidental work, etudes, experiments, tangents etc that might not ever get into collections. HM has plenty of those, for instance.
Point taken. Strange, though, that writer-specific books should house the material of most interest to a general audience (the 'best-ofs'), while journals house the work that's of more interest (I'd think) to readers with a particular interest in the writer, incidental work, experiments and all.
quote:
commercially, polemically and in terms of popularity, yes. Editorially, I think he lost a whole second voice -- the one I prefer, actually. Early PBB published some of the (now) lost works. Pity about the rest... I'd have gotten them out if I'd known they weren't going to show up in the final print run.
I'm not saying it's better off cut, but it does appear to have been better off released cut than not released at all.
What exactly has happened to the 'lost works'?
quote:
What I'm saying is that in creating the conditions that result in high-quality work, inspirational examples of conspicuous excellence alone are not enough (even if they are perhaps useful to some).
I never said it was enough, generally speaking.
quote:
Having an LKY to admire doesn't breed a nation of men like him. There's a lot of infrastructure, dirty work, plus an eco-system that includes the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tier talents, which together prop up the pyramid. I'm interested in the building of that wider ecosystem.
It's difficult to disagree with your points on infrastructure and dirty work, but what precisely is the role of 2nd-nth tier talents in the pyramid (other than of hopefully moving up to become first-tier talents)? I'm not claiming there isn't any other role; I'm just unclear on what it is.
quote:
Then again, I come from a pre-CAP environment where we had to figure it out all by ourselves, with no local role-models to emulate (and remaining rather skeptical about the whole idol-worship business, really).
I'm not talking about idol-worship, really (though lord knows Alfian gets plenty of that), but just excellent *work* that's out in the open. I suppose it's his particular voice as much as the quality of his writing that makes him so appealing to the young, but whatever the reason, it so happens that his poetry is what makes many of young writers (in my experience) sit up and realise what local writing can do. Of course, whether it's Alfian or anyone else who causes this awakening in a particular young writer is besides the point. It's not a personality thing.
(CAP--that's a topic for another day.)
quote:
The plain fact is that to this day, I find very very few poets in Singapore genuinely pleasurable to read, and none consistently so. If I were to go for the A+ approach in running a Singapore journal, there'd not be enough for more than 2 issues, solicited or otherwise.
Your candour is refreshing. I'm certainly not advocating that you take such an approach (as I've stated, I dropped prescriptiveness early in the thread), especially since, if I'm reading you right, you don't get as many submissions you consider instant-yes/A+ as QLRS does as it is. |
| alf |
Posted - 06 Feb 2005 : 02:30:46
quote:
I do not have your expertise ... but as for the villanelle example, how is the harmoniousness (or lack thereof) of the repeating lines not a matter of taste? And when the line-repetition breaks the traditional rules of a villanelle, is it failure of form or an appropriate variation on it (i.e. does the divergence from the formal norms serve the content)? There is a point where purely technical judgement pulls up short and taste must take over, even in a supposedly 'objective' assessment of a poem.
-- ah, there's a whole university education behind the appropriate answer to that question, Nick. Perhaps you'd like to find out for yourself in due course?
|
| Nicholas Liu |
Posted - 05 Feb 2005 : 23:33:37
Hsien Min: quote:
I don't think that taste does not (unfortunately) affect technical judgement, but I do believe it is possible to strive towards objectivity in the exercise of critical thought.
.
.
.
With poetry, I would suggest that technical judgement is achieved by reading it against its objectives. If a certain L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet believes that the extent of materiality in his poetry retards reading enough to concentrate attention on the words because of the difficulty of gliding over the words... well, does it? Or has the parataxis been decontextualised so that we merely indulge in the consumption of the language? Or, on an even simpler level, if someone has set out to write a villanelle, do the right lines repeat at the right places, and (assuming there isn't a contrary agenda) are they harmonious?
I do not have your expertise and in fact had to Dictionary.com 'parataxis' to grok your meaning, but as for the villanelle example, how is the harmoniousness (or lack thereof) of the repeating lines not a matter of taste? And when the line-repetition breaks the traditional rules of a villanelle, is it failure of form or an appropriate variation on it (i.e. does the divergence from the formal norms serve the content)? There is a point where purely technical judgement pulls up short and taste must take over, even in a supposedly 'objective' assessment of a poem.
quote:
The whole thread is starting to wind round in circles. I think I shall try to close my part in it by saying: I don't think soliciting (individuals) is a good thing and I would certainly continue to work around it; but it's no biggie to me if other editors choose to do it.
Fair enough. |
| alf |
Posted - 05 Feb 2005 : 02:50:41
quote:
I'd write you something back about free verse,
had your comment not been such twee verse...
<barf> T'was freely given and cost no one a penny:
From where it came there still remains so many. </barf>
|
| alf |
Posted - 05 Feb 2005 : 02:40:54
quote:
Also the possibility of writers of quality waiting to be solicited instead of freely submitting good work.
Okay, that's a fair point. Is it really such a big concern, though? What could be behind such a reaction besides laziness and pride? Would it be so common, do you think?
-- Just about all the recently published work by senior writers such as E Thumboo were solicited. ET's work at least has been sitting around for a while... So yes, it happens.
Now, the argument might be, is it not better for their work to be made available by someone asking for it? The answer is yes. Does that mean a journal like QLRS is the best platform to solicit such work? I'd say not...
quote:
I think you're injecting unnecessary machismo into what is at heart a pretty innocent transaction. Inviting a submission from a writer whose work you find interesting is not begging.
-- and inviting is not *soliciting*, really. I think we're all agreed that
a. a general friendly invitation to submit for consideration without obligation is prob ok.
b. however we don't want to have to do that for every piece in every issue.
quote:
Surely it can be due to his friendliness with them as well as furthering a (commendable) developmental/representative goal. Of course, I'm no mind-reader.
-- nothing wrong with that. but it begs the question, why HCJC vs RJC or AJC or SAJC etc. etc. It's perfectly ok since Softblow is a private gallery -- which does not have the same cultural/social obligations as a more general journal such as one with the espoused goals of QLRS.
quote:
I think we can agree that a generation of Raymond Fernandos would not do much good for Singapore's literary future.
-- but will it do HARM tho? The presence of and accolades heaped onto the likes of Lim Hsin Hsin (and some other brand-name poets I could mention) have not necessarily stifled the poetry scene either.
quote:
That's a point I have to admit I hadn't considered. There does seem to be a focus on getting a book out and not so much on putting out individual poems via journals. I couldn't say if this is changing or not, but if it is, I feel it would be just as much due to improved standards as increased opportunities (i.e more venues). How meaningful publication in a journal is perceived to be is tied to the journal's overall quality.
-- Agree of course. The general route for a career poet really is through journals (and a variety of them) to build presence, credibility and readership. Go look at the volumes by your Heaneys and Muldoons -- a good percentage of the pieces are acknowledged as having first appeared in journals.
Books collect the "best-ofs", and of course offer a certain coherence as a volume. But that means that journals also have a role as a platform for incidental work, etudes, experiments, tangents etc that might not ever get into collections. HM has plenty of those, for instance.
quote:
I think I saw a brief mention of the cuts inflicted on One Fierce Hour in an interview with Alfian posted somewhere I can't remember now. That's unfortunate, but to be fair, it seems to have worked out for him, hasn't it?
-- commercially, polemically and in terms of popularity, yes. Editorially, I think he lost a whole second voice -- the one I prefer, actually. Early PBB published some of the (now) lost works. Pity about the rest... I'd have gotten them out if I'd known they weren't going to show up in the final print run.
quote:
It's not either-or: we can have journals charting organic growth as well as journals where the quality is engineered (over-engineered is unfair).
-- That's of course fair enough. I took most issue, originally, with the prescriptive tone of your initial argument. Everyone's entitled to have a go at their own aesthetic if they're doing the work.
quote:
Of course all these people are valuable and to be commended, but what I am saying is this: visible excellence is what most inspires young writers to keep at it, not consolation prizes for effort. Of course the two can work together--my point is that a high-quality venue indirectly furthers the developmental goal simply by running high-quality work; it isn't shirking responsibility.
-- What I'm saying is that in creating the conditions that result in high-quality work, inspirational examples of conspicuous excellence alone are not enough (even if they are perhaps useful to some). Having an LKY to admire doesn't breed a nation of men like him. There's a lot of infrastructure, dirty work, plus an eco-system that includes the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tier talents, which together prop up the pyramid. I'm interested in the building of that wider ecosystem. And frankly I'm not sure the role model strategy is either necessary in our context or even successful.
Then again, I come from a pre-CAP environment where we had to figure it out all by ourselves, with no local role-models to emulate (and remaining rather skeptical about the whole idol-worship business, really).
Perhaps HM, himself a CAPper's hero, might have something more useful to say about that.
The plain fact is that to this day, I find very very few poets in Singapore genuinely pleasurable to read, and none consistently so. If I were to go for the A+ approach in running a Singapore journal, there'd not be enough for more than 2 issues, solicited or otherwise.
|
| Hsien Min |
Posted - 05 Feb 2005 : 01:48:06
quote:
Were he allowed full rein to go work on it,
every other piece would be a sonnet.
I'd write you something back about free verse,
had your comment not been such twee verse...
quote:
I think it's limiting to talk about whether something's 'to your taste'. There's more to taste than I like vs. I don't like. Your tastes govern what you consider accomplished/skillful just as much as they govern what you find personally appealing. No?
I don't think that taste does not (unfortunately) affect technical judgement, but I do believe it is possible to strive towards objectivity in the exercise of critical thought. In the case of wine it's arguably easier, because you can measure physical characteristics (you can measure alcohol, acid levels, even the types of acid, extract levels) and the act of tasting goes some way toward approximating these quantities and the harmony they create, independently of whether you like the taste or not. With poetry, I would suggest that technical judgement is achieved by reading it against its objectives. If a certain L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet believes that the extent of materiality in his poetry retards reading enough to concentrate attention on the words because of the difficulty of gliding over the words... well, does it? Or has the parataxis been decontextualised so that we merely indulge in the consumption of the language? Or, on an even simpler level, if someone has set out to write a villanelle, do the right lines repeat at the right places, and (assuming there isn't a contrary agenda) are they harmonious? But reading it as a reader as opposed to a critic, it's perfectly okay to say, I can't get into L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E or I hate villanelles. And just as I don't want to technical-taste to the extent that I can't simply enjoy wine anymore, I don't want to technical-read to the extent that I can't simply enjoy poems anymore; which is one way of saying, no I wouldn't read Poetry Salzburg Review or Shearsman to look for writers of a type that might be remarked to be somewhat missing in QLRS.
The whole thread is starting to wind round in circles. I think I shall try to close my part in it by saying: I don't think soliciting (individuals) is a good thing and I would certainly continue to work around it; but it's no biggie to me if other editors choose to do it.
Cheers,
HM |
| Nicholas Liu |
Posted - 05 Feb 2005 : 01:18:59
Say, Alvin, I'd forgotten to address these points you made earlier:
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Is the obligation still there in 2(a), where you state that it's for consideration?
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I think 1 is a form of soliciting. Once you approach specific writers, you're expressing interest in their stuff in particular; what results can't really be called a general submission, I think.
-- your quote 2 answers quote 1. Yes, there is an obligation.
I don't agree. Merely expressing interest in considering a submission from a writer isn't tantamount to a promise to publish it.
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Also the possibility of writers of quality waiting to be solicited instead of freely submitting good work.
Okay, that's a fair point. Is it really such a big concern, though? What could be behind such a reaction besides laziness and pride? Would it be so common, do you think?
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sure, but a credible journal with an open submission system would attract the good ones too. You might not get the Alfians without asking -- but I take it that it's QLRS's stance really not to beg...
I think you're injecting unnecessary machismo into what is at heart a pretty innocent transaction. Inviting a submission from a writer whose work you find interesting is not begging.
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and you begin to see my pt I hope, and how it all ties in with the quality vs integrity issue.
Sorry, but I don't. I particularly don't see how quality and integrity are in opposition.
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yes, and thats coz said Softblow editor was invited to a HCJC poetry event and made friends...
Surely it can be due to his friendliness with them as well as furthering a (commendable) developmental/representative goal. Of course, I'm no mind-reader.
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"something to aim for" might well be journal publication in the first instance and ultimately one's own collection.
Those are career aims (insofar as poets can be said to have careers); I'm talking about writing aims, which I think are more important. Raymond Fernando has two collections of his own--he's living the dream, and good for him, but quite apart from whatever merits he may have as a person (and all this talk of personal standards aside), I think we can agree that a generation of Raymond Fernandos would not do much good for Singapore's literary future.
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Having journals around also takes the pressure off the need to get one's books out too early (and avoid, for instance, the sort of polemic slash-editing that One Fierce Hour underwent... you shld've seen the manuscript vs the final book).
That's a point I have to admit I hadn't considered. There does seem to be a focus on getting a book out and not so much on putting out individual poems via journals. I couldn't say if this is changing or not, but if it is, I feel it would be just as much due to improved standards as increased opportunities (i.e more venues). How meaningful publication in a journal is perceived to be is tied to the journal's overall quality.
I think I saw a brief mention of the cuts inflicted on One Fierce Hour in an interview with Alfian posted somewhere I can't remember now. That's unfortunate, but to be fair, it seems to have worked out for him, hasn't it? <g>
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I don't think anyone is arguing that they'd rather not publish quality work. I think we're saying, in the context of this thread, that we'd like to presevere a certain editorial integrity while doing so, for the good of the long-term literary environment.
Evoluntionarily, it makes sense to mark and exploit small positive steps forward since revolutionary leaps are not always possible (what are you gonna do, ONLY publish Alfian?). And better that growth be organic (free submissions from the open field), than over-engineered (solicitation), at least in this society where we already have too much of the latter.
There's a place for that; there's also a place for journals which aim for A+ poems all the time. I started this thread being prescriptive, in that I was offering suggestions for finetuning QLRS specifically. I have since learned why what I suggested is impossible/undesirable for QLRS. The discussion then moved to journals in general. In continuing to defend the notion of a journal that would rather publish more high quality poems (solicited, if need be) than more poems of acceptable quality by new writers, I don't mean to suggest that this is *the* way to go. I'm saying that it is also valid, and offers some advantages (which of course come with disadvantages, enough, apparently, to fill five pages of posts). It's not either-or: we can have journals charting organic growth as well as journals where the quality is engineered (over-engineered is unfair).
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Everyone worships and emulates the rockstars, but who looks after the scene that makes them possible? How did you even encounter Alfian in the 1st place if not for an entire value chain, with its mediocrities and inadequacies notwithstanding?
Of course all these people are valuable and to be commended, but what I am saying is this: visible excellence is what most inspires young writers to keep at it, not consolation prizes for effort. Of course the two can work together--my point is that a high-quality venue indirectly furthers the developmental goal simply by running high-quality work; it isn't shirking responsibility. |
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