EASTER MONDAY - BURYING THE BONES

Took a look at Rob A Mackenzie's blog www.robmack.blogspot.com to see if the Good Friday 'Feast' was over yet. I was taken aback to discover some of my comments to him, and his responses, had been deleted.

I was prompted to wonder, when does moderating a blog become censorship?

So to keep the public record straight the missing dialogue is published below:

SUNDAY 23rd March 2008: On the blog of Rob A Mackenzie

Oh dear, Rob. You closed down the comments on your last entry and I got up this morning wanting to respond to the last point you made before I dragged my flu-ridden self off to an early bed. 


You say that what you were intending was literary criticism of my work. Fair enough. But, in my book, literary criticism is best based on a thorough, considered and open-minded reading of the poetry concerned. 


Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but apart from Wild Women of a Certain Age and perhaps Miners' Daughters, which appears on the StAnza website, I suspect your so-called literary criticism was based on a single hearing of a tiny selection of my work last Sunday.

Your use of the lazy Maya Angelou/Pam Ayres comparison does not bode well for your future as a literary critic.
And your subsequent comments along the lines of (oh and I paraphrase here) - I don't doodle in the margin of a phone directory and call it art - do seem most clearly to connect back to your original comment on my poetry.


As a poet I would expect you to have a deep understanding of tone of voice. The tone of voice used in the criticism of my 'verse' in the original posting no doubt led to the nasty comments which followed.


And it's such a shame, because I heard you read at last year's 100 poets, and I thought that poem was excellent.


Yet again graciously,

Magi Gibson
8:20 AM


rob said...
Magi

I'm sure you can understand why I closed the comments - it was getting nasty on both sides. That's one good reason not to open the can of worms again.

Look, send me an email (address at my profile) and maybe we can settle this.
11:35 AM

magi gibson said...
Well, Rob, from my perspective I don't think the postings which I saw on the blog when I got up this morning were any more nasty than those towards the start of your thread.


I think my posting re the true nature of literary criticism makes my position clear.

This sorry 'can of worms' was started on a public forum. Anyone entering 'Magi Gibson' into a search engine with 'StAnza 2008' was - and is in future - going to find it.


If you would like to settle this, I'm happy for that to be done by you re-opening the closed thread and us discussing it there.
5:55 PM

rob said...
No, I'm not going to do that. It's up to you. Email, privately, is the best way to settle this. Otherwise it won't be settled.