CPR - Letters to the Editor

Editor's Note
The Contemporary Poetry Review is pleased to publish selected letters to the magazine, some of which have been edited for content and clarity. The editor can be contacted here.

Concerning: The Real Jack Foley

"Jack Foley watches a new film"-- but I just watched Jack Foley, or, at least, George Clooney, who plays him, in a rather old one, Out of Sight, based on the Elmore Leonard novel. My mind began spinning, though this may be due, in part, to all of the antihistamines I've been gobbling in this, the worst pollen season, or so we're told, in decades, at least down in south coastal Georgia.

No need to answer and I apologize if I seem continually to be cluttering your Inbox. It's just that 1) I'm a faithful and careful reader of CPR; and 2) I thought I was hallucinating there -- too much Nu-hist and Sudafed (my husband and I have consumed so much in the past month that we fear our pharmacist thinks we're manufacturing speed in the backyard) for a moment!

Diann

Mr. Foley responds:

"Jack Foley" is also the inventor of the Foley process -- a post-production sound-editing technique frequently used in films. A friend of mine lives with an old Hollywood film editor who knew that Jack Foley. When I phone, he regularly says to me, "You're not Jack Foley. I knew Jack Foley."

Someone gave me a copy of the Elmore Leonard novel when it came out. The Jack Foley of the novel has an ex wife named "Adele." (My wife is "Adelle.") And there were a few other connections as well. People were saying to me, "You know Elmore Leonard, right?" But I don't. Pure serendipity. A friend of mine told Leonard at a booksigning about the coincidences, so he signed a copy to me, "To the real Jack Foley."

Tell that to George Clooney!

Concerning: The William Jay Smith Interview

I found the recent interview with William Jay Smith interesting, especially his brief comment on French Theory, since his frustrations seem to mirror my own. Something I observe in regards to Theory's effect on academia and, as a result, most literary criticism — which might be akin to what Mr. Smith meant by his comment — is that these complex and idiosyncratic theories are not understood fully by most academics or critics, who themselves do not have the intellectual ingenuity to do more than mechanically apply a given set of standard critiques over and over and over.

This leads to a second, for me more poignant, observation: of the servility to these theorists one finds in so many Literature departments. It is not the theorists' ideas that are reprehensible (they're quite useful in many cases), or "wrong" in the way we think of Wilson and Johnson as having been "wrong" in retrospect; but the demand that practitioners sacrifice their own critical skills and intelligence altogether is, to my mind, antithetical to critical thought of all types. It is as if their critical functions were replaced by an often meaninglessly complicated rhetorical logic: a rigorous, industrial machine. It's a form of extremism, evangelism, not unlike that found in religion or similar to early gnosticism (as they partake of a secret knowledge). Perhaps in time experience will alter this impression, or maybe as the first wave of theorist-followers ebbs the situation will be alleviated. It could also be a case of my rejecting the established generation's fetishes, or asserting a (naive, some theorists would argue) individuality; in either case, I was glad to see a similar opinion by a respected critic.

Best,

Daniel E. Pritchard

Concerning: The Harvard Roundtable

Dear Mr. Pritchard:

A fully adequate extension of Frost's legacy is found in the later work of Richard Wilbur. If you aren't certain about this, see his "A Wall in the Woods" and "Hamlen Brook."

Yours,
Alfred Corn

Mr. Pritchard responds:

Mr. Corn,

Thank you for this referral, I'm an admirer of Mr. Wilbur's strong control of language and form, although I'm not sure that his work—though accomplished and admirable—necessarily stands up next to that of Frost and, I believe, Heaney. That being said, opinions do vary, and I am happy to return to Wilbur's work with this in mind.

Concerning: Lisa Butts’s review of recent chapbooks

It doesn’t seem she is able to tell if a poem is shitty or not; she can only make historical/literary connections or complain about absent or unclear ones. SO WHAT?

Gene Fendt, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska-Kearney

Ms. Butts responds:

I’m first of all a little taken aback by the brutishness of Mr. Fendt’s phrasing; however, I would say my job as a critic and a scholar is to make specific remarks about a poet’s place in the canon, possible shortcomings, etc., not to make vast generalizations about overall “shittiness” (“shittyness” perhaps? I don’t even know). It is for readers to decide, based on my analysis, if they are intrigued and care to look into the matter for themselves. Contemporary Poetry Review is not, to me, a forum for the expression of my personal taste in a sort of “thumbs up/thumbs down” type of rhetoric. If I encountered a review that did operate on this level, I would find it reductive and intellectually suspect. I’m sorry if this particular whoever-he-is doesn’t find the traditional method of literary criticism as riveting as a good cock fight, but it just happens to be something I believe in respecting.

Lisa Butts