From: sstover@sumax.seattleu.edu (   Wilde Dame)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: Several words about posting...
Date: 17 Dec 1992 08:43:51 -0800
Organization: Seattle University
NNTP-Posting-Host: sumax.seattleu.edu

Keith,

I've left out your original article, though I'd like to comment first of
all on its tone and content.  I highly suggest you learn to use the phrase
"in my opinion" as well as the phrase "I think."  These will help you
express your opinions in far less offensive and inflammatory ways and will
probably lend a certain amount of credibility to them (I know that for
myself, the rash generalization about the desires of the majority of
usenet readers is disturbing if not preceded by some reference to the fact
that the following is an opinion or assumption).

I supported the idea of rapd because the majority of discussion on the
group was moving away from critique of individual poems and into
discussion of poetry and poets in general.  The unfortunate side effects
of this turn of discussion (i.e. insult wars and straying further and
further from the original topic) are the reason I would like to see rap
split.  However, I also was careful to state that I did not approve of rap
being a moderated group.  I still hold that opinion. 

Your own post contained many of these elements.  That you support the
splinter group because you consider the O'Tooles "shit" (despite the fact
that they seem to be some of the few serious writers on the group) seems
hardly acceptable; furthermore, you didn't claim that this "shittiness"
was your opinion, but rather expected us to buy it, straight from the
horse's mouth.  Why is it necessary for you to stray from your
constructive reasons for your opinion (which I will address in a moment)
and jump into this insult fray?  What, indeed, is up with *all of us* that
we have to call each other names whenever we attempt to have a
conversation?  

As to KILL files, I have my own opinions.  I find it unfortunate that you
have had "Re:*" in your killfile all this time; I've read a lot of what I
considered very good poetry in response to other poems.

As regards critiques of poems, I'm afraid I very much disagree with you. 
Certainly discussion of poets and poetry in general, while still of value
to the serious writer, becomes tedious when one types "rn" intending to
take in a little poetry.  However, my own experience has been that
observing and examining the line-by-line critiques of other poems is both
helpful and informative.  For you to claim omnisciently and emphatically
that no-one else CARES about critiques is a bit unsettling to me.  In
addition, as I observe it, if any critique is going on at all, the vast
majority of it is already by email.  Perhaps one in 10 (generous estimate)
"re:" posts is a line-by-line critique of someone else's poem.  I think
you're stabbing at the wrong animal in that regard.

It's Christmastime, and I don't really have the energy to get into a
flamewar.  I'm attempting to suggest to you that perhaps you should
consider who you speak for when you type "no-one."  I'm asking that
everybody out there calms down a little, just for a while, since I suspect
a week or two to steam and then cool would put these discussions back on
the track of genuine, informed, insult-free conversation.  Perhaps then
all this talk of splinter groups can be looked back on with a wry smile,
sort of like the night six years ago when you threatened to walk out on
the very person you're still waking up next to this morning.  Get a little
perspective, and be nice to one another.

Christmas cheer, or holiday of your choice....


-- 
       Sheryl Stover  %  If you ask me what I have come to do in the world,
  & Hemingway & Clio  %  I who am an artist, I will reply: "I am here to
sstover@seattleu.edu  %  live aloud."                    -Emile Zola
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems