The Case of Jughead and Veronica versus Nagasaki, the Jim Behrle chronicles

A Kent Johnson flashback to the days when disruptive behavior was the norm or at least, the norm at Silliman's house. The party is over. The world is now a much better place thanks to Ron Silliman.

http://www.skankypossum.com/pouch/archives/000099.html

"Yet what is perhaps most astonishing about all this is the following: Behrle carries out his activities with hardly a peep of objection from the "politically progressive" post-avant poetry community. He even has, in fact, the open endorsement and admiration of some of the most prominent bloggers (not least a few who are fond of engaging in solemn ruminations about ethics and the building of tolerance and community). What I suggested somewhat fancifully in one of my postings on Silliman’s blog bears saying again in more straightforward form: The tacit acceptance on the part of such a large and supposedly "socially sensitive" community of such abusive, manipulative, and figuratively violent conduct is disturbing to say the least. I don’t mean that all concerned approve of Behrle’s behavior: there is no doubt (and I know of more than a few examples) that some are intimidated into silence by his wildly vengeful histrionics. But beyond the silence, there are, as I said, prominent figures who do openly praise and coddle Mr. Behrle, despite regular, bountiful examples of the conduct I have outlined above--and despite the fact that his "poetry blog" seems almost totally uninterested in poetics except as a social network for the propagation of his egocentric excitements. All of this, I’d argue, is worth reflecting on.

I believe this little flame-incident of the past few days, then (one fresh enough so that erotic lingerie souvenirs, bearing my name hand-sewn by Mr. Behrle himself, can still be purchased—"this will be the closest Kent Johnson ever comes to rubbing his face against human genitals," as he charmingly puts it on his blog), points up a certain "problem" in the still infant world of poetry blogdom. It might be good for other poets to begin thinking a bit more about it. If one or two people do, then I am glad I "lost it," as they say, and gave Mr. Behrle a brief but healthy taste of his own distasteful tonic.2 " -Kent Johnson, 2004