Restaged Debate

Five years after the event, Richard Harrison's report on my "cage match" with Christian Bök is finally online.

As is almost always true of such staged debates, much was said. And much was left unspoken. Then we all went to the lobby for refreshments. It might have ended there. But between what was discussed and what was left unsaid that night, in the nature of the audience drawn to two poets whom many regard as antagonists, and from all that led up to the event—including Starnino’s Writer-in-Residency at Mount Royal and the publication of the second edition of Bök’s Eunoia—emerged a wide-ranging, deep and fascinating discussion about the nature of poetry and of the mind that writes it. What follows are the conclusions I’ve come to so far as a participant in a symposium spread out across the offices, hallways, bars, classrooms and various virtual spaces in the community created by the Cage Match itself.

It's a long essay, but well worth your time.