Monthly Roundup: New Additions
New segment, new editor, same impeccable taste
Welcome to the inaugural Silver Door monthly roundup for October, 2023, where perusal-worthy articles and poetry related happenings from Substack and beyond are highlighted alongside recent SD news and posts.
This is just one new segment of what will become the regularly scheduled monthly offerings at Silver Door. If there’s anything you’d like to see included in this new segment or something you’d like to see covered elsewhere, drop a comment.
Thanks for your patience as these pieces slowly get locked into place. Patience is the most annoying virtue to practice, as I’ve been learning first-hand recently; the Woods family is currently in the process of buying our first home…
J.Z Schafer joins Silver Door
First and foremost, J.Z Schafer has joined the publication as co-editor. What that means for you is MORE, BIGGER & BETTER CONTENT!!! In all seriousness, we’re both excited to see Silver Door evolve and expand in the months and years ahead. J.Z’s poems speak for themselves, as many of you will have experienced already (if not, you can find his first two on SD here and here). We’ve got plenty cooking behind the scenes.
Around The Web
Duncan Reyburn: Growing your hands back – In an ocean of writers writing about remaining human in the cyborg age, Duncan is a cut above:
Our ability to touch things, to be in touch with people, even, is fast becoming something too old-fashioned and traditional to be respectable to others who have made a deal with the diabolical. I don’t know about you but I want my hands back."
Thomas Graves: SCARRIET ON THE LATEST THEORIES OF POE’S DEATH, AI DANGERS, AND LITERARY OBJECTIVITY – Three articles in one piece, really. For my money, Graves is the go-to rogue Poe scholar of our day. The section on literary objectivity demonstrates the value of Socratic sparring while defending the idea that “Education makes one less objective.”
& on AI:
AI is not at a disadvantage because it doesn’t draw from “experience” or “biology.” Well, it is a disadvantage, but it’s the nature of writing itself that this is not a disadvantage. The one great disadvantage AI faces (and we should never forget this) is that AI cannot appreciate. It can form and copy and re-combine, endlessly, but it cannot do so with pleasure. Its inability to appreciate is what condemns it to the machine world forever. It will never rival human imagination for this sole reason, a reason so obvious, we may miss it for that very reason.
Kevin LaTorre: That Iron Ambition- Drawing on Gerard Manley Hopkins, among others, Kevin tackles the topic of literary ambition with style and grace:
In writing anything, vanity is always near at hand. Unto God, writing that pleases Him is always possible. There is no sure sure avoidance of the temptation, and there is writing I must do.
Thomas Bevin: The End of Extremely Online Era – We can only hope this white pill is for real:
I don’t believe people will be frightened into changing how they act or suddenly shamed into putting their phones down for once in their lives. Such interventions don’t work with most addicts and more and more people are legitimately hooked on their devices than we are currently willing to countenance. No, I think this will all end, as T.S Eliot said, with a whimper. People will simply lose interest and walk away. Because the internet now is boring. People spend all day scrolling because they are trying to find what isn’t there anymore. The authenticity, the genuinely human moments, the fun.
Silver Door Posts (ha)
Hot off the heels of publishing The Substack Poetry Manifesto, I tackled the question of bringing poetry from online into the “real world.” The subtitle, Dinner parties as nexus of cultural rejuvenation gives you a taste of what I propose.
In Poetry World, the big news was the death of Louise Glück, “one of a quite literally dying breed of elite academic poets…”
And for those fretting about the apocalypse:
Literary Video of the Month
Early Christian Literary Theories by Dr. Scott Masson—in contrast to the post-Cartesian worldview we have inherited. Taken from his History of Literary Theory - 2023 lectures. I highly recommend all of Dr. Masson’s work.
Glad to make the roster!
I'm finding that well-curated round-ups can be a good prop for literary culture on this platform, as much as I've bemoaned them as filler in other digital spaces.