May 13th
May 13th
I have finished reading the Jane Fonda book, My Life So Far; unquestionably she has had an eventful life and while I suspect the book is more than a little self serving, I mostly enjoyed it. I can understand, though, why many wouldn’t buy it on the principle that she was Hanoi Jane. I think she was more than a little naïve in that episode, but then I detect other signs of naïveté in the book.
Other than that, I have been reading magazines this week: Vanity Fair, New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly as well as a crop of others. The letters pages in these magazines interest me. How are letters selected? There seems to be a preponderance of professors in the pages of correspondence, are they selected according to the perceived importance of the correspondent, and are some, perhaps, selected as they give the author of the original article the opportunity for a smart rejoinder and demonstrate his or her superior intellect?
I probably enjoy the works of Percy Shelley as much as anyone, but his “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” statement has caused poets to overrate their political influence ever since. I say this as a letter in the pages of Vanity Fair used the comment as justification for Sam Hamill and other poets refusing to take place in an event that Laura Bush was putting together. The difference it has made to opinion in this country? Squat. Who knows, had Adrienne Rich attended the luncheon with Laura Bush, she may have been able to say something that stayed with her. Her open letter of refusal achieved nothing.
Byron’s direct engagement, albeit short, at the end of his life with the Greek cause had a more lasting influence than Shelley’s poem of social revolution, Ode to the West Wind. I applaud Hamill’s views, but Michael Moore achieved far more for the same cause. Does this mean that Sam should stop trying, of course not, and he is probably more realistic about his influence than many of his more vocal supporters. I do think he would have been better served by attending the event and reading anti war poems and subsequently gathering the work for Poets Against the War than by not engaging directly.
I have finished reading the Jane Fonda book, My Life So Far; unquestionably she has had an eventful life and while I suspect the book is more than a little self serving, I mostly enjoyed it. I can understand, though, why many wouldn’t buy it on the principle that she was Hanoi Jane. I think she was more than a little naïve in that episode, but then I detect other signs of naïveté in the book.
Other than that, I have been reading magazines this week: Vanity Fair, New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly as well as a crop of others. The letters pages in these magazines interest me. How are letters selected? There seems to be a preponderance of professors in the pages of correspondence, are they selected according to the perceived importance of the correspondent, and are some, perhaps, selected as they give the author of the original article the opportunity for a smart rejoinder and demonstrate his or her superior intellect?
I probably enjoy the works of Percy Shelley as much as anyone, but his “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” statement has caused poets to overrate their political influence ever since. I say this as a letter in the pages of Vanity Fair used the comment as justification for Sam Hamill and other poets refusing to take place in an event that Laura Bush was putting together. The difference it has made to opinion in this country? Squat. Who knows, had Adrienne Rich attended the luncheon with Laura Bush, she may have been able to say something that stayed with her. Her open letter of refusal achieved nothing.
Byron’s direct engagement, albeit short, at the end of his life with the Greek cause had a more lasting influence than Shelley’s poem of social revolution, Ode to the West Wind. I applaud Hamill’s views, but Michael Moore achieved far more for the same cause. Does this mean that Sam should stop trying, of course not, and he is probably more realistic about his influence than many of his more vocal supporters. I do think he would have been better served by attending the event and reading anti war poems and subsequently gathering the work for Poets Against the War than by not engaging directly.
posted by Paul | Saturday, May 13, 2006
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