Angle of Dissent

There's this funny thing about censorship: it reveals more about the psychology (or, better, psychopathology) of the censor than anything else.

Yes, censorship is destructive, for sure. And that hurts all of us (especially you and me, dear readers -- which is the subject of today's post). But -- in and of itself -- what the censor chooses to black out, cut away, chop up or otherwise destroy says a lot about him or her. Primarily (pun intended by sheer accident), it describes what they're most afraid of.

And what they're most(ly) afraid of -- usually, anyway -- is revealing their ignorance. About what? That is often the most revealing factor in the equation.

OK, on to today's subject: The Purpose Behind This Entire Thing. ("Ooooo, is he really going to tell us this now?" Um, yeah.)

And What This Is All About (I've decided) is metapoetics. Nobody that I know of ever did an update to Ari's old lecture notes on poetry (guess what it's called), the way Boole and his friends did to Ari's lecture notes on formal logic.

You see, I'm a believer in the old school. I'm also a believer in using the bricks of the old school (and the tips and tricks of its masons) to build the new one.

And it's in the irrational interstices within the fabric of traditional verse where the New World of poetry lives. But when we censor (ourselves or anyone else), all we're really doing is willfully ignoring that meta-reality.

Together, I think we will find the "book beside the Poetics" (really bad inside joke here). I really do.