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Letter to TDR

Subject: Shane Neilson's review of After Acorn

July 2000

Dear Danforth Review: 

Thank you for publishing a review of my chap-book collection of short pieces, AFTER ACORN. I want, however, to point out a couple of errors I think your reviewer, Shane Neilson, makes, and also to note a couple of things he ought to have mentioned.

Mr. Neilson accuses me of using bad grammar, and of failing to identify properly the memorial anthology from which I quote in the essay "Acorn Absorbed." The examples he gives of the first fault are not grammatical errors, although the sentences may qualify as "turgid prose" in Mr. Neilson's book. As to the second, the title of the book I'm quoting from in the first section of "Acorn Absorbed" forms the first four words of the first sentence of the essay.

Mr. Neilson does not say so, but the pieces gathered together in AFTER ACORN are book reviews, talks, and short meditations, and the whole in no way purports to be a full scholarly treatment of either Milton Acorn or his works, in competition with the books of Ed Jewinski, Richard Lemm, or others, as Mr. Neilson seems to imply. Additionally, I make it very clear that the initial inspiration for many of the themes developed in the chap-book was a series of conversations I had with the poet between 1974 and shortly before his death, a fact Mr. Neilson also fails to report. These omissions may not be "unforgivable" sins against the spirit of book-reviewing, but they do, perhaps, constitute a violation of one of its chief canons; i.e., the duty of informing potential readers of what is in a book. 

- Terry Barker, Willowdale, ON

 

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The Danforth Review is produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. All content is copyright of its creator and cannot be copied, printed, or downloaded without the consent of its creator. The Danforth Review is edited by Michael Bryson. Poetry Editors are Geoff Cook and Shane Neilson. Reviews Editor is K.I. Press. All views expressed are those of the writer only. International submissions are encouraged. The Danforth Review is archived in the National Library of Canada. ISSN 1494-6114. 

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