Sunday, November 13, 2005
From pop culture to poetry (The World According to Josh)
UC Davis professor shares experience as former rock journalist, renowned poet
"English professor Josh Clover is an interesting mix of the new and the old. Sitting in his office among his collection of poetry books and Ikea furniture while spitting out popular culture references with passersby, he’s a hip writer in the body of a poetry professor.
Before he started his career at UC Davis three years ago, Clover’s résumé consisted of writing for trendy magazines and receiving notable literary awards. Writing book, film and music reviews for such publications as Spin and Gentleman’s Quarterly, a lot of his adult life was spent maintaining an interest in pop culture.
'My interest really has been in the ways that people dismiss popular culture,' Clover said. 'It’s more of a political decision than a choice of taste … a class bias against things that can be real expressions of human existence.'
He eventually left the glamorous life of a rock journalist when he started to hate what it stood for.
'I used to write record reviews for Spin, but I realized it was just a form of convincing kids to buy records,' he said. 'I became disgusted with myself and left big-time music journalism. Now I review poetry books, which doesn’t matter because people don’t buy them anyway.' " ¶ 11/13/2005 07:37:00 PM
UC Davis professor shares experience as former rock journalist, renowned poet
"English professor Josh Clover is an interesting mix of the new and the old. Sitting in his office among his collection of poetry books and Ikea furniture while spitting out popular culture references with passersby, he’s a hip writer in the body of a poetry professor.
Before he started his career at UC Davis three years ago, Clover’s résumé consisted of writing for trendy magazines and receiving notable literary awards. Writing book, film and music reviews for such publications as Spin and Gentleman’s Quarterly, a lot of his adult life was spent maintaining an interest in pop culture.
'My interest really has been in the ways that people dismiss popular culture,' Clover said. 'It’s more of a political decision than a choice of taste … a class bias against things that can be real expressions of human existence.'
He eventually left the glamorous life of a rock journalist when he started to hate what it stood for.
'I used to write record reviews for Spin, but I realized it was just a form of convincing kids to buy records,' he said. 'I became disgusted with myself and left big-time music journalism. Now I review poetry books, which doesn’t matter because people don’t buy them anyway.' " ¶ 11/13/2005 07:37:00 PM
