[Catherine Tufariello]

Jeremy Telman (a.k.a. my husband) has just published a review of Robert Crawford's Too Much Explanation Can Ruin a Man in the current issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review:

http://www.valpo.edu/english/vpr/tel...wcrawford.html

I hope it brings Bob some well-deserved new readers.

This is Jeremy's second review for VPR, and he hopes to publish more poetry reviews there and elsewhere. Bribes from poets seeking reviews may be directed to him c/o me, via PayPal.

[Julie Steiner]

What are his rates, Bob?

Warm wishes to all parties,

Julie Stoner

[Michael Cantor]

What a wonderful review! Congratulations to both Jeremy and Rob.

[Tim Murphy]

Jeremy, this is just a splendid review of Crawford. Much more thorough than my own http://www.seablogger.com/index.php?s=Robert+Crawford
I read and reviewed Bob's book on the five hundred foot long porch of the Mount Washington Hotel. Be assured that I shall send you a copy of my New and Selected, which is about four times the size of Bob's first book.

[Paul Lake]

As an admirer of Robert Crawford's poetry, I was happy to see the positive review of his book. The section on his love poems was particularly good. But I thought the criticism of his satirical poem about Millay was rather unfair. The following line from the review uses what I believe is a politically loaded word in an inappropriate way:


"The sad thing about 'Millay’s Child' is that it threatens to taint the entire volume with its determined misogyny."

The reviewer is much fairer and more moderate in his judgment when he uses the facts of Millay's biograpyy to demonstrate that the poet's abortion was probably motivated more by being disregarded by the unborn child's father than by personal vanity or fear of having her art eclipsed by parental responsibilities. There was no need to blast the satire for "determined misogyny"--an unproven charge anyway--and then suggest that the entire volume must then be interrogated to ensure that it hasn't been tainted. The reviewer adds:


"After reading it, one returns to the love poems to ascertain whether Too Much Explanation Can Ruin a Man contains any poems that portray women in a positive light and as something other than objects of desire."

Though the reviewer concludes, "Fortunately, as we shall see in turning to the narrative poems, it does," the conclusion only serves to show that raising the charge in the first place was unnecessary.

Similarly, while the reviewer chastises the poet for having a political motivation for giving the fetus a gender and using a personal pronoun, him or her, to describe it in the poem, he is just as doctrinaire as the poet in his own use of the word "fetus" to describe the unborn child. Should we likewise say to Anne Sexton that the refrain line of her abortion villanelle shoud not have been "Someone who should have been born is gone," but rather "Some fetus who should have come to term is gone" ? After all some"one" might betray a suspect political agenda.

I don't think that in writing a poem, the word "child" or "him" or "her"
is less appropriate than a clinical term like "fetus." (What sobbing woman after a miscarriage cries out, "I've lost my fetus!") As in raising the charge of "misogyny," the reviewer here seems a little too bent on being politically correct. As if one has to be a little extra careful when favorably reviewing the book of a religious conservative not to absorb some of the taint.

[Stephen Scaer]

I regret that an inordinate amount of space was spent on “Millay’s Child." Mr. Telman’s logic doesn’t hold water: The narrator indicates Millay was vain, Millay was a woman, therefore the narrator thinks all women are vain and the narrator is a misogynist. “After reading it, one returns to the love poems to ascertain whether Too Much Explanation Can Ruin a Man contains any poems that portray women in a positive light and as something other than objects of desire.” Bob obviously isn’t guilty of this, but what would be wrong with writing a book of poems entitled, say, “Women as Objects of Desire”? I appreciate Bob’s frankness and his unapologetically masculine voice.



[This message has been edited by Stephen Scaer (edited October 12, 2006).]

[Tim Murphy]

I agree with Stephen that much too much ink was spilled on the Millay poem. Jeremy, there is a tendancy on the part of reviewers to show how tough they can be. And that's ok, though my classmate Wm Logan takes it to ridiculous extremes. I prefer to single out what I like in a book as admirable as Bob's. I happen to share his views on abortion, and unlike Bob's close friend, Len Krisak, or my late father, I do not hold Millay in high regard.

[Catherine Tufariello]

Jeremy advised me to stay out of this, and probably I should. My intention was not to participate in the thread, apart from drawing attention to the review. But with the turn the discussion has taken, I feel the need to speak up.

Jeremy read Bob’s book with a lot of enthusiasm, and he was surprised that a debut so accomplished wasn’t being reviewed. He wanted to remedy that, and the main focus of the review is on the book’s considerable strengths. He had, however, to take account in some way of “Millay’s Child.” It’s difficult for me to imagine a review that would pass it over unmentioned. It’s a provocative poem, about one of the hottest-button subjects going. As such, it was bound to stand out and to elicit strong reactions, pro and con. Jeremy’s own reaction was in the latter category, and he described it candidly. He would not be a responsible reviewer, in my opinion, had he done otherwise.

Thorough, thoughtful, sympathetic yet critical reviews of poetry books are rare. Usually, as we all know, the best a poet can hope for is a paragraph or two in an omnibus review. As an educated non-poet who cares a great deal about poetry, who actually reads books of contemporary poetry for pleasure, Jeremy is a member of an endangered species. I feel fortunate to get his responses, positive and negative, to my own work, even if he won’t take my bribes.

But I’ll shut up now. Maybe Bob himself would like to weigh in.

Catherine

[Paul Lake]

Catherine,

You're absolutely right about how rare poetry reviews are and how grateful poets should be for any kind of notice, and Jeremy's review of Robert Crawford's book was highly positive and thoughtful. I was grateful to see the book so extensively reviewed. On balance, I'm glad the piece was published, despite the reservations I somewhat reluctantly noted above. What spurred me to do more than just be happy for Robert and shrug off my qualms was the nature of the criticism. Being charged with "misogyny" is toxic--like having one's poem described as exhibiting a "determined racism," though not as bad. The merest hint of such a thing subjects the author to a sinister and socially disabling type of suspicion. And in this instance, I think the charge was unwarranted.

As a one-time poetry reviewer myself, I know there's a certain pressure to find some fault in even a good book in the interest of honesty and balance. I also know that critics younger than I have been educated to believe that one of the main purposes of literary criticism is to expose the misogyny, racism, and "classism" of authors. I'd just rather save such charges for those who deserve them.

[RCrawford]

While I certainly don't think the poem is full of "determined misogyny," or any kind of misogyny, the reviewer can't be faulted for singling out "Millay's Child" for strong criticism. I think it's one of the weaker in the volume, mainly because it fails to get across what I wanted it to be about--not abortion, but the human price paid to pursue art. I disagree with Jeremy Telman's analysis of the poem, but I can see how he got there, and that's my fault.

Like the reviewer, I hope readers will also move on to the other poems to get a better sense of my poetry.

Overall, I thought the review was very favorable and I was thrilled to have such close and intelligent attention paid to my poems.

--Robert Crawford