Concerning Some Recent Criticism of Her Work

Here is a somewhat condensed and (ironically!) reorganized version of what my husband had to say about why he didn't like my "Choose Your Own Adventure" post:

"My reaction to your first blog entry is that it seemed like an attention getter – and kept on being an attention-getter. So its primary purpose was to show off. It wasn't about what the reader might want or need. It was about you having fun with it. Except that your 'fun' seemed to be primarily about imagining the reader saying, 'Oh, this is clever!'. Well, I'm not impressed. I already know you can do the clever thing. What would really impress me is some kind of growth, you trying something new.

"I didn't like the cleverness because I think it served to cover up the fact that you really don't know what you're trying to say. Reading that first entry, the message I'm getting is that this blog is going to be a lot of disorganized information that will be a lot of hard work to figure out. I'm a lazy reader – if I'm going to read something, I want the author to do some work. You've got my attention, now persuade me that this is worth my while.

"I know that you are trying to be less audience-centered, that part of your point is that not all writing has to be the kind of organized writing I'm looking for – but that puts me in an awkward position. It's like I'm being told that you don't really give a fuck about me, the reader."

(Me: <writing it all down> Care if I quote you on this? Tyler: <slight laugh> No.)

***

Now, I have a long list of possible responses to Tyler “The Critic” Jarvik's somewhat valid but also hard-to-choke-down complaints, but as much as I love lists (Tyler: “Lists are the worst possible form of organization!”), I think I'd like to conclude this post with a pair of poems by Mark Doty:

Concerning Some Recent Criticism

of His Work

-----Glaze and shimmer,

luster and gleam;

can't he think of anything

but all that sheen?

-----No such thing,

the queen said,

as too many sequins.

Concerning Some Recent Criticism

of His Work

-----Glaze and shimmer,

luster and gleam...

-----What else to do

with what you adore

but build a replica?

My model theater's

an opera of atmospheres:

morning's sun-shot fog

hurried off the stage,

tidal gestures,

twilight's pour:

these gorgeous and

limited elements

which constitute

a universe, or verse

and if I love

my own coinage,

recombinant elements

(I know, lacquer

and tumble and glow,

burnished and fired

and hazed) it's because

what else Lord

to wear? Every sequin's

an act of praise.

These bright distillates

mirror the day's

glossed terms-----

what's the world but shine

and seem? She'd sewn

the wildly lavish thing

herself, and wore

-----forgive me!-----shimmer...