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ericvormelker 's review for:
Tocqueville
by Khaled Mattawa
Decades ago (just after high school) I took a writing class from [a:Naomi Shihab Nye|9586|Naomi Shihab Nye|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1629179631p2/9586.jpg]. I still run into her every few years or so, and most recently mentioned to her that I grew up in Libya. She told me about Khaled Mattawa, who was born in Libya, and suggested I check his work out.
Now I have, and if this is any indication, it's not for me.
It was like reading a literary collage, one that I do not have the education necessary to appreciate. His thickly layered references and long poems spliced together from other works and snippets of quotes or paraphrasings of documentaries, news clips or other programs just left me lost.
Almost the entirety of my poetry reading experience is from a more bucolic range, or classic, or meditative. Nevertheless, I could tell that there was a lot of references in it even before I found the Notes at the end, which explained exactly how deeply referential his work is.
For me, this was a strangulating gordian mess, like looking at a collage where each eye, cheek, ear, nostril, every element of the face and background are hacked out of some other picture and slopped together into a mutilated 'why?' If I had more of an understanding of visual arts, I'd improve this analogy, but I don't have that education either.
I'm in the middle of reading a collection of short stories, essays, and interviews by Neal Stephenson. In one of the pieces toward the beginning, he talks about the difference between popular novelists and higher-ed writers (I can't recall the two terms he used). He wasn't negative about either, but in it, he discussed the ecology of 'literary' writers, their need for critics and how much a part of the whole ecosystem they are. I can see where, since it's pretty nearly impossible to make a living as a poet, they are (if they aren't rap/hip-hop artists) almost all firmly in the 'literary' universe, requiring critics and vetting. Reading the back of this book, Mattawa clearly has his strong supporters, lauding him for something that I kinda got, but don't really find it noteworthy or very interesting.
There are times where I've thought I might be on the edge of that universe. But this book suggests to me that, nope, I'm definitely not.
Nevertheless, I hope I'll get to see Naomi Shihab Nye again and will manage to remember to ask her if Mattawa's work makes any sense at all to her. I hope to also remember to ask my poet friend who might be a little closer to that world than me.
Now I have, and if this is any indication, it's not for me.
It was like reading a literary collage, one that I do not have the education necessary to appreciate. His thickly layered references and long poems spliced together from other works and snippets of quotes or paraphrasings of documentaries, news clips or other programs just left me lost.
Almost the entirety of my poetry reading experience is from a more bucolic range, or classic, or meditative. Nevertheless, I could tell that there was a lot of references in it even before I found the Notes at the end, which explained exactly how deeply referential his work is.
For me, this was a strangulating gordian mess, like looking at a collage where each eye, cheek, ear, nostril, every element of the face and background are hacked out of some other picture and slopped together into a mutilated 'why?' If I had more of an understanding of visual arts, I'd improve this analogy, but I don't have that education either.
I'm in the middle of reading a collection of short stories, essays, and interviews by Neal Stephenson. In one of the pieces toward the beginning, he talks about the difference between popular novelists and higher-ed writers (I can't recall the two terms he used). He wasn't negative about either, but in it, he discussed the ecology of 'literary' writers, their need for critics and how much a part of the whole ecosystem they are. I can see where, since it's pretty nearly impossible to make a living as a poet, they are (if they aren't rap/hip-hop artists) almost all firmly in the 'literary' universe, requiring critics and vetting. Reading the back of this book, Mattawa clearly has his strong supporters, lauding him for something that I kinda got, but don't really find it noteworthy or very interesting.
There are times where I've thought I might be on the edge of that universe. But this book suggests to me that, nope, I'm definitely not.
Nevertheless, I hope I'll get to see Naomi Shihab Nye again and will manage to remember to ask her if Mattawa's work makes any sense at all to her. I hope to also remember to ask my poet friend who might be a little closer to that world than me.