It Comes and Goes, Like the Seasons (or Really Bad Poetry)…
When I first started blogging, I remember getting almost panicked whenever my traffic numbers would dip, and far too ecstatic when they peaked…I came to realize, however, that the numbers would take care of themselves over time, and that blogs just work they way…one minute you’re hot, the next you’re not, and things change quickly. Often, the posts that you are proudest of get no recognition, and others strike a chord and get linked over and over.
I’m blessed right now to be riding one of the hot streaks: my post on the RNC conference call and the Mother Sheehan / Mother Mary post are ranked #3 and #5, respectively, at Blogniscient among political posts, and my Weekly Jackass piece on Harold Pinter is getting good play, too.
In fact, the Pinter post was the subject of the following putdown of my own poetical abilities by Acephalous in a slam that I find very amusing:
Pinter’s award inspires a poetic response from the well-known poet Mark Coffey of Decision ’08. [Below the fold.] Such sweet prosody I expected from Carolyn’s foul-mouthed poetic prodigy, but from Mark Coffey? How can so many so patently blessed remain so anonymous?
How many mute inglorious Mark Coffeys must we bury before acknowledging the provinciate artistry of Nobel winners?
When will the poetry of the 21st Century manifest itself in full?
When will the drama of the 21st Century fly off the shelves at the speed of Dan Brown?
A fool, yes…
A jackass I am called
Yet awards, I win them
And nothing’s left but this stale bowl of Fruit Loops
Pain
Money
Dreams
Chomsky!
My destiny awaits. [This is, of course, my own tribute to Pinter - Mark]
Just think: Mark Coffey will never get those three hours back.
Well, bad publicity is better than no publicity, right? Right? Hello? Anyone there?…
As always, thanks for your readership, friends and foes alike…
Acephalous is a graduate student in English, a fact which hardly needed verification. English grad students give off a very…characteristic…aroma.
Acephalous doesn’t seem to understand that just because you’re famous it doesn’t mean that you’re actually good. Does anyone remember the name of the guy who won the Booker Man prize last year for his cheap shot on Texas, for example? What’s he done lately?
As for the Igs, anyone who comes from where I currently reside (or who can use Google) knows that I’m not trying to be clever in my wordplay. Pfft.
I expect he’s just jealous of your talent. I mean, a political pundit AND a poet? How can a simple grad student compete? That, and it’s never pleasant to have your idol’s feet of clay revealed. And then mocked. But hey, that’s life.
If you need a laugh I’m still wiping the tears out of my eyes over this one. Language alert.
http://varifrank.com/archives/2005/10/smurfville_dele.php
AE, that’s funny stuff, all right…
More excellent verbiage from VariFrank. Funny as hell.
If Pinter could count
he could hate Bush in Haiku
and still win a prize.
Five is beyond him.
Seven exceeds his learning;
and there’s five again.
Beautiful…well done, Darrell…
Thanks Mark!
What aroma is that, Jeff? Sure, I’m stuck in the ’90s, but that’s only because I can’t afford to replace my Drakkar Noir with some spicier, sexier cologne, like whatever Orlando Bloom or Dick Cheney wears.
bebere, take it like a man. I’m sure you knew about the Ig Noble prize, just like you undoubtedly know about the Darwin Awards…but that doesn’t change the fact (articulate huffs notwithstanding) you intended it to be clever, and it wasn’t.
Darrell, while I’m sure Pinter can count–and while what you’ve written there’s actually clever–your point’s quite similar to the one I made. Pinter’s recent work, politics aside, isn’t what I’d call “quality,” but it did probably factor into the Committee’s decision. That said, his work in the ’50s and ’60s is of sufficient quality to merit the award. And the committee usually selects people 30 to 40 years after their best work. (As one commenter on my site noted, Hemingway won in the ’50s, after about 20 years of drunken hack work.) There’s nuance to this position, I realize, and no one–left, right, “artistic”–seems keen to it.
Scott, welcome, and congrats on the big hits from Hunter of Kos fame…although I’m sure you think I’m a worthless neocon caveman, I have read a book or two. If you’ll go back to my original post giving the Weekly Jackass to Pinter, you’ll notice I specifically did not concern myself with his literary merits. This is a political blog, and it’s his politics that I find remarkably ignorant. And one more thing: I’d rather be right than clever, though naturally I prefer both…
Mark, I don’t know you well enough to think you any kind of caveman. (I’m a teacher. Everyone I encounter gets the benefit of the doubt. You have to prove to me you’re an idiot–actually, you have to prove to me that you’re the kind of idiot who refuses to learn anything–before I stop trying to engage you on an issue honestly.) I wasn’t commenting on your politics, but on the response to Pinter’s winning the award. The idea that Pinter was undeserving because of his current politics was what I mocked (and your poem–Darrell’s up there is a model of parody, if a bit off the mark). To take that thought out of the parentheses, it’s the idea that those who are ideologically opposed to you can’t count that really bothered me. “Pinter doesn’t support the war and wrote bad poetry about it, therefore he certainly doesn’t deserve the award for the sixty or so brilliant plays he wrote during the first two-thirds of his career.” You’ll notice that while I did take you to task for the lame parody, I didn’t lump you in with those who say “Books? I don’t read books.” The only thing I mocked you for was your poem, because it didn’t display an awareness of how egregiously bad Pinter’s recent poetry is. There was none of the shocking imagery, mangled syntax, terrible and inconsistent meter; in fact, you seemed to be mocking a Sylvia-Plath-type confessional poet, which led me to believe 1) you have read some poetry in the past but 2) you’re knee did jerk when you heard Pinter had won.
I suppose what bothered me both about your response and those whose base all belong to Kos is simply a failure to see past the surface of the matter: you mocked him for the content when the poems themselves are terrible as poetry; they praise him for the content when the poems themselves are terrible as poetry. And, of course, the fact that he deserves the award for the dramas he wrote decades ago slips beneath everybody’s radar. (Not to say the decision to grant it to him now isn’t politically motivated, mind you; only that politics aside, it’s not undeserved.)
Well said, and thanks for the reasoned response. You’re right, as you said before, that the Nobel often goes to someone whose best work is long past, with the excellent example of Papa…and I clearly don’t have your educational background in the field of literature (though, in a perfect world, my entire day would be filled with nothing but reading and writing). In any event, I do wish you well, and for that matter, I’ve got no ill feelings towards Pinter, or his earlier work. I’ve had my fill, however, with people who, because they oppose Bush (or Blair, as the case may be), demonize him and compare him to the worst tyrants of the past. You can be intelligent in opposition, and on that basis, Pinter scores quite low…
Enjoy your weekend…
All these years later, and I still occasionally visit this page when I feel down, just to read Scott’s kind words.
Can’t remember who said it: “Praise shames me, for I secretly beg for it.”