I like Kent Johnson well enough, tho never met him beyond a few emails (almost did a couple times tho). I am not jazzy enough for his fierce notice, but I recognize that he's a force and entity Out There, poking away. subversive at times, I like subversion. to me, Poet as Hero goes only so far. I know my own whingeing tendencies at times, having been very solo in the enterprise, to the point of feeling wonderful for the heroic persistence sans acclaim or even input from others that I managed, for years. but so what. Kent's political views shouldn't becloud the nature of his work. we generally agree, wide-minded poets that we are, that Iraqi slaughter is a bad thing, and the machine moving this country here likewise, and so on. in poetry, I don't think those moral points score extra. that's all part of the poem's entrails, not the live thing itself. Kent often uses the political anger well, which can be categorized as technique, which is not to suggest that the feelings aren't sincere. I don't want to take sides, yuck, but find Gary Sullivan's responses at his blog and in comments at Chris Murray's Texfiles(does anyone else see the difficulty of the medium here?) to be useful, poetically charged. I found no attack in his words, and so what about attacks anyway. Mr Johnson makes his own attacks often enough, this is what's on the board. odd for someone who has questioned the poet's identity to be himself trapped by the one inferred by the public. Nada Gordon wondering whether that Korean writer who posted to Poetics might just be a Johnsonian hoax. Kent is of many aspects, kinda human that way.