[New-Poetry] Cats & Bulldogs

[jforjames at aol.com]

http://www.cprw.com/Misc/cats.htm


The true low point of the evening was the response of the speakers to a prompt regarding the poetry critics’ role as gatekeeper. McLane immediately denied the authority, as might be expected. Burt argued that critics were “really like a cat”—an outdoor cat, he noted—who brings odds and ends, dead birds, mice, etc., to the back door as if to say, “Look what I found!” Kirsch opined then, “But sometimes critics have to be like a bulldog.” 

(A review of “Critical Contexts,” a roundtable on contemporary poetry criticism hosted by the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University on Monday, March 30th, 2009. )
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