¡Bemsha SWING!: Why I don't Talk About Politics Here (A Couple Reasons)

2 may 2011

Why I don't Talk About Politics Here (A Couple Reasons)

My political opinions are utterly banal. They are probably your opinions already, unless you are a raving conservative birther idiot or part of the idiot left. There are many political bloggers who are more informed of the granular details of contemporary politics, or more interested in getting into debates about very specific issues. My disgust for any kind of right-wing politics is visceral, but I don't need to reiterate it endlessly on twitter or face book, since it is probably identical to yours. I like to write about other subjects much more. I get upset whenever I actually think about politics for too long.

3 comentarios:

Clarissa dijo...: I never had any doubts about one of my favorite bloggers, but it's always good to have a confirmation. :-) :-); 7:26 p. m.
Spanish prof dijo...: I completely respect your lack of interest of blogging about politics, but I would disagree that your political opinions are utterly banal (whichever they are). I believe that if a country is going to have a discussion about what type of policies they want implemented or not, nobody's opinions are banal. I find that the more interesting discussions are with people whose views are similar to mine, but where we might disagree on issues. They are informative, I learn other (rational) perspectives, and I get to explain mine without being shouted "communist" or something similar.

That, of course, doesn't imply that you should be blogging about politics. I seldom blog about it, and I love politics.; 9:39 a. m.
Jonathan dijo...: You make a good point. By banal I meant unoriginal, mostly. If I blogged about Spanish politics, say, then I would be informing Americans about something they don't know about and which I follow with some interest. I wouldn't ever be an original voice in American politics, though.; 9:44 a. m.

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Blurbs & Reviews

"Jonathan Mayhew’s new work belongs to a certain class of surprising books: those so obviously necessary once they appear that it apparently required a stroke of genius to come up with the idea for them."

--Daniel Katz

"Jonathan Mayhew's Lorca is less the distinctive Spanish poet, whose murder in 1936 marked the beginning of the Civil War, than he is an American invention. From the 1940s to the end of the century, our poets have invoked Lorca-in translation, of course-as a Romantic, exotic, radical, and, in many cases, gay icon-the poet of mystery and the duende. The Lorca myth, Mayhew argues persuasively, has enriched American lyric, but it has also been an obstacle to a more adequately grounded understanding of Spanish poetry in the 20th century. Apocryphal Lorca is revisionist criticism at its most acute."

-Marjorie Perloff

"Enhanced by copious notes and an excellent bibliography, this book offers a perceptive, intriguing assessment of the Garcia Lorca created by the postwar generation of American poets." (Choice )

"Mayhew is a critic who is at the top of his game; he combines a breadth of knowlege of the field with acute analysis."

--John C. Wilcox, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"Let me just cut through all the usual, boring book review preliminaries and say the following thing: Jonathan Mayhew has, in Apocryphal Lorca, written an amazing book. "

--Brandon Holmquest, Calque

"The great merit of Mayhew's study is his sustained effort to document and interrogate Lorca's reception, unique among American encounters with foreign literatures in its nature and extent."

--Lawrence Venuti, TLS.

"Se trata de Jonathan Mayhew y su extraordinario estudio Apocryphal Lorca. Translation, Parody, Kitsch. Esta obra se ocupa no de García Lorca sino de cómo los escritores estadounidenses han reinventado a Lorca, desde Spicer y Rothenberg hasta O’Hara y Koch. Asimismo, es una discusión de la Deep Image —¡cuánto hay que desmenuzar de ese capítulo!— y la manera en que la poética norteamericana se ha apropiado de lo lorqueano (o lorcaesco) y del concepto de lo 'otro' que éste representa. Éste es un libro repleto de sutilezas, de tesis, apuntes, datos."

--Heriberto Yépez

"Apocryphal Lorca, sin embargo, es mucho más que un estudio de las vidas posteriores de Lorca en la poesía americana entre principios de los años 50 y 70. También ofrece un acercamiento histórico a la traducción de su obra, descubriendo reseñas de prensa significativas y discurriendo acerca de reconocimientos críticos. El texto es elegante y fresco; el análisis amplio e históricamente específico."

--María Delgado, Revista de Literatura

¡Bemsha SWING!

2 may 2011

Why I don't Talk About Politics Here (A Couple Reasons)

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