No one HAS to contribute to discussion groups, but if you do the evidence of your sometimes ill-considered remarks are there forever, or until the site folds. That's how it goes; if a thread has taken a turn which may have legal consequences the editors have a duty to scrub it but are under no obligation to do so just because it happens to no longer please one of the contributors. Well, not on this site at least.
I'm resolutely of the opinion that people do what works. Hence lovely, lovely Hen will continue to behave as he sees fit, a-sparring and a-jousting with all-comers on multiple threads, because at some level, he likes it.
(Yes Jon! I'm cramming motivations into your open skull! I'm attributing thoughts to *you*, but I don't even *know*! Yahahaha! ;oP)
Tilting at e-windmills lifts him from the langour of his procrastination ridden existence and makes him feel, with each ripost, as if he is achieving something, fighting on the behalf of some worthwhile cause. And, though these exchanges may be fraught, and may make him angry, they're fundamentally safe. There's very little risk involved beyond a bruis'ed ego.
Jonny boy - imagine there were a little robot, and this little robot, whenever someone taunted it, would shoot sparks out of its ears and its head would spin round and smoke would go poot poot poot out the top of its noggin. I'd wager that, no matter how cutsie, nine out of ten people who came into contact with said robot would tease it just to watch its funny enraged reaction. Don't be like that little robot. Be like a toaster. Nobody enervates toasters.
And now you know why.
Woh! I've been offline for too long. Hooray for abusive threads. Trousers with the words F U C K Y O U written on them. Abusive threads.
Anyway, I just pre-ordered Jon's book. I liked the rip-off selected poems look. And, being a student, find that sort of thing quite funny. I'm not interested in getting involved in the Jon's writing is 'rendered virtually unreadable by the self-consciousness of youth' thing. Mainly because I got bored reading the threads and just skipped straight to the abuse.
Fact is, Jon's a very talented boy. Very. And he writes a great poem. He has his own style, which he gets slated for, but you you can't hide the fact that he is a natural.
He'll only get better and I am all about showing off about owning an early collection of selected poems for when his actual Selected Poems comes out in thirty years time. Then I'll sell it on Ebay for three, maybe four times, its original price.
Bring it on!
nah.. he's in France I think. Easy to confuse being in France with being dead, in my experience, but i have no doubt he's alive and well.
Perhaps it's just some jolly hilarious doodah about not writing under that name anymore?
"Is this for real? Does anyone know the facts?"
Yes, he is really publishing a book of his collected poetry.
No, he's not dead.
If you look at the cover of the book, it's a stunningly similar design to the one that one of those big clever publishers (Faber & Faber (?), Penguin (?)) use for their 'classics'.
I think there may be a hilarious literary ruse going on.
"The women he touched were on the same journey" ... that phrase alone made me think it was a wind-up, but I daredn't say so just in case it wasn't.
Very funny joke to those in the know, but could be distressing to casual readers or acquaintances (like Emma). Not clever, Jon and UKA.
don't panic emma, it is a fairly transparent bit of 'studenty' humour. And to think, I've defended him in the past when Missi has called him pretentious... To be fair, I think it is supposed to be tongue in cheek pretentious, but that's a very fine line.
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