Why is it that I want to resist all pretentiousness, all unnecessary verbiage, in critical response? Maybe because I am an academic and am reacting against my own ambience. I already own this pretentious language, I don't need to acquire it for professional legitimacy, so I can afford to run away from it. Someone else looking at it from the outside in might see at as an object of desire, a way of being taken more seriously perhaps.

I hate handwringing and apologizing for my critical reactions. My reactions are my own. I own them. I don't need to examine their provenance or situate myself in an anguished or supercomplicated way.

***

I got rejected from a few SoQ Venues recently, like the New England Review. My experiment was to see whether I had crossover appeal. Apparently I don't. But more importantly, I am not sure I have appeal even within the anti-SoQ camp. That is, I have also been rejected by journals where I might fit in stylistically quite well. The difference is between batting .000 in the SoQ and about .400 in the non SoQ. I am Ted Williams against left-handed pitchers but hitless against righties.