Leave Me Alone

There is the fluidity through which theory and theoretical apparatuses tie-in to books; and, also, the fluidity through which theories tie-in to popular culture. The argument I make, in the new piece on the Jeffrey Side blog, for Mary Walker Graham, Stacy Blair, and Rebecca Hilliker, has to do with isolation. The poet is happy to put out a leave me alone vibe. A strong stance, even if it is a suffering stance, too. Stronger, I feel, then the standardized feminist stance-in-verse. More about a sense of earned entitlement owing to superior imagination, metaphoric daring, and the rest. The reason I tie the new piece, which I actually worked on for a very long time, to the final track on New Order's Power, Corruption, and Lies, is that the three poets do establish a new order within themselves. An order about self-containment, self-sufficiency, and self-possession. About a possible connection between the three and post-punk, as we have here, sort of. The sense that feminists do think of themselves as punks, but often grandstand and play to crowds and crowd formations, means putting post-punk in front of the three written-about names is not complete nonsense. I would also like to say that I am now a convert to the religion of Power, Corruption, and Lies, and understand that, if I missed New Order when I was younger, it would be foolhardy to so do now.