Thank you for this absolutely necessary, incredibly well-written, and enlightening post! Thank you for bringing to light much needed context for who n is. All I actually knew about n before this course was that my friends in IB complained incessantly about him because they had to read so much of his work. How did the fact that he is an abuser never come up? Maybe it's time for the IB program at Bayview Secondary School to revamp their curriculum. Orla already commented on this but: "I chose not to use his name — he didn’t use hers." THANK YOU. And thank you for choosing to reflect on your feelings because emotions are so de-valued in academia, and in life in general. I feel incredible rage right now, and I think we could all do with a little more feminine rage.
the first sentence is fucking devastating and it needed to be said. i was so unaware of n being a perpetrator and feel so disgusted it makes me wonder if the dissonance evident in his writing came not to a world of modernity or something more sinister, for what he himself perpetuates. i think about how much i love his poetry—but i also think about how much more wonderful it could be, if an indigenous women had the same resources, whose gentless extends beyonds words
“I chose not to use his name, he didn’t use hers” literal chills!!!! Taking into account the positionality of authors is so incredibly important and so often neglected. To read his work while not understanding the person it was created it is to miss a huge part of the perspective we’re reading. Thank you for talking about this
I really appreciate your post. If it weren't for you, I would not have been aware about this information about the writer. As you mentioned, this opens up the conversation to how we should examine narratives by people who were not good people. Do we consume their texts without taking this into account? Do we consume the texts with the added context? Or should we not consume the texts at all?
Hi Caroline,
Thank you for this absolutely necessary, incredibly well-written, and enlightening post! Thank you for bringing to light much needed context for who n is. All I actually knew about n before this course was that my friends in IB complained incessantly about him because they had to read so much of his work. How did the fact that he is an abuser never come up? Maybe it's time for the IB program at Bayview Secondary School to revamp their curriculum. Orla already commented on this but: "I chose not to use his name — he didn’t use hers." THANK YOU. And thank you for choosing to reflect on your feelings because emotions are so de-valued in academia, and in life in general. I feel incredible rage right now, and I think we could all do with a little more feminine rage.
Take care,
Cissy
the first sentence is fucking devastating and it needed to be said. i was so unaware of n being a perpetrator and feel so disgusted it makes me wonder if the dissonance evident in his writing came not to a world of modernity or something more sinister, for what he himself perpetuates. i think about how much i love his poetry—but i also think about how much more wonderful it could be, if an indigenous women had the same resources, whose gentless extends beyonds words
“I chose not to use his name, he didn’t use hers” literal chills!!!! Taking into account the positionality of authors is so incredibly important and so often neglected. To read his work while not understanding the person it was created it is to miss a huge part of the perspective we’re reading. Thank you for talking about this
Hi Caroline,
I really appreciate your post. If it weren't for you, I would not have been aware about this information about the writer. As you mentioned, this opens up the conversation to how we should examine narratives by people who were not good people. Do we consume their texts without taking this into account? Do we consume the texts with the added context? Or should we not consume the texts at all?
You may, or may not, find this reading of (a different book by) Neruda helpful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMtwcQtWIeY