{"id":796,"date":"2014-02-12T11:32:53","date_gmt":"2014-02-12T19:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/?p=796"},"modified":"2014-02-12T11:32:53","modified_gmt":"2014-02-12T19:32:53","slug":"a-defense-of-kristin-stewart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/2014\/02\/12\/a-defense-of-kristin-stewart\/","title":{"rendered":"A Defense of Kristin Stewart …"},"content":{"rendered":"

… and of the\u00a0poem she recently published, surrounded by snark, in Marie Claire<\/a>\u00a0magazine. The poem is called “My Heart is a Wiffle Ball \/ Freedom Pole.” Writes poet and UCLA professor Brian Kim Stefans<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This [post] is partly to address the apparently universal opinion by journalists \u2013 most of whom seem to not know anything about literature \u2013 that this is a terrible poem.<\/p>\n

My own initial post went like this: \u201cThe second stanza isn\u2019t horrible. Worst part of the poem are those awful adjectives! Stupid Beats.\u201d What I meant by this was that the words \u201cdigital\u201d (applied to moonlight), \u201cscrawled\u201d when linked to \u201cneon\u201d (neon<\/em>\u00a0is a much overused word by poets who want to sound like Beatniks) and \u201cabrasive\u201d (applied to organ pumps) weren\u2019t working for me. I also didn\u2019t like the word \u201cubiquitously\u201d especially since everything up until that point was in the singular \u2013\u00a0ubiquitously<\/em>\u00a0seems to suggest some sort common element among many parts. Not a big fan of \u201cWhilst\u201d either.<\/p>\n

But I thought the second stanza was very delicate with sound play \u2013 \u201cparked\u201d and \u201cMarfa\u201d are good off-rhymes (I heard the word \u201cbarf\u201d in there somehow) and there is some nice alliteration in \u201cDevils not done digging \/ He\u2019s speaking in tongues all along the pan handle \/ and this pining erosion\u2026\u201d etc. And I like the broken syntax and quick movements in perspective \u2013 there\u2019s little to no punctuation and most people can\u2019t pull that off. And the line \u201cHe\u2019s speaking in tongues all along the pan handle\u201d is very evocative to me \u2013 and seems to explain some of the eccentricities of syntax and vocabulary in the first verse!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I share Stefans’ impressions.<\/p>\n

And I would add that Stewart’s piece provides surprise and conveys joy. These are two of the profoundest reasons we love youth.<\/p>\n

h\/t JM<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… and of the\u00a0poem she recently published, surrounded by snark, in Marie Claire\u00a0magazine. The poem is called “My Heart is a Wiffle Ball \/ Freedom Pole.” Writes poet and UCLA professor Brian Kim Stefans: This [post] is partly to address … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[27,77],"class_list":["post-796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-roberts-posts","tag-criticism","tag-playfulness","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}