Talk:Kevin Hart (poet)/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Removal of sourced info

Copied from the talk page of the editor (User:Ranga93) who has been removing material from the page:

I see that you removed the same information from the Kevin Hart (poet) article, using the edit summary "The content I removed was offensive, and misrepresented Kevin Hart." However, all of the information provided was cited by reliable sources. Wikipedia's job is not to decide what is offensive and what is not, but merely to provide summaries of what reliable sources have said about subjects. If there are alternative views (other reviews or analyses), we can certainly incorporate those views into the text as well. Alternatively, if you believe some of the info added is not from a reliable source, you are welcome to discuss on the talk page sections or phrases you find to be unreliable. It was fine of you to remove the content once, but since your view has been disputed per policy, you need to come to the article's talk page to discuss this change. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:50, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

So please address your concerns here. Please provide us with specific reasons why the material should be removed, keeping in mind Wikipedia's principles--that the goal is to add verifiable information supported by reliable sources, and not to attempt to push a particular point of view. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:50, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Citation needed tags

I see the problem now--the person who added all of the "~~~~~" refs means for the person to look down at the references. This is not actually the correct method for citing things in Wikipedia--instead, each citation should be placed inside a reference tag as an in-line cite. I'll go through and fix those, although it will take me some time. I'm going to put a tag on the article asking that no one edit it for an hour while I fix the problem.Qwyrxian (talk) 00:27, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I fixed about half the references and need/want to move on to other things. Hopefully others can help fix more; if not, eventually I'll get back around to this. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:59, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Attention, all editors

Noting that there have been a relatively large number of third-party complaints to OTRS about the even-handedness of the information found here, along with similar complaints here on this talkpage and in the editing history, this article is now under BLP Special Enforcement, administered by User:NuclearWarfare. A neutral, approved text for the article has been added. As such, the following provisions apply:

1. A "one revert rule" will be instituted; revert more than once every 24 hours, excepting vandalism or BLP violations, and you will be blocked for a short period. Repeat offenses, longer blocks.
2. Information must be added from reliable sources, found through a compatible and properly formatted citation. Any information inserted without reliable sources will be removed, with point 1 not applicable for these actions.
3. Users are reminded that NPOV is a policy, not a guideline. See above knuckle-cracking gestures for what happens if you fail to follow it.

• As the person handling the neutral version, article maintenance and the plethora of annoying OTRS whinings, Ironholds (talk) 03:41, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• Approving above text. NW (Talk) 03:42, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm just wondering--is there a reason why the current version contains no negative commentary about his works? Is this standard practice for authors/poets--to only site positive commentary about them? Or was the negative commentary not from reliable sources? I don't really care much one way or the other, but I remember older versions of the article being extremely (and unacceptably, NPOV-wise) negative, but now the article seems to have a strictly positive POV.Qwyrxian (talk) 04:28, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Overwhelmingly positive wasn't my intention; I couldn't find any negative commentary in the academic works I had access to, and didn't feel comfortable (for obvious reasons) including the old references. The hope is that people will take this as an opportunity to start from scratch and re-add that material which comes from reliable sources and contains negative assertions (weighted according to the fringeness of it, obviously). Ironholds (talk) 05:22, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Overwhelmingly positive is the effect, despite your intention. Intention gets no credit here. The new article is a DUD. What do you mean, you don't feel comfortable, for obvious reasons, including the old references? These are real quotations, taken IN CONTEXT, from genuine sources--poetry reviews and literary journals that are peer-reviewed. I've checked them myself. Have you? The attacks on the article over the last month have resulted in a nice little puff piece for Hart. If you're going to remove the really good evaluations of his work from Brown, Lehmann, Leonard, Wong and so forth, you should remove the blurbs from Bloom and Simic. You know where those came from? Not from peer-reviewed literary criticism but from the dust-jackets and back covers of Hart's own works! Hardly NPOV if you ask me! It's as if Hart himself--or one of his cronies--has succeeded in turning his Wikipedia entry into a personal page for self-glorification. I hardly think that's what Wikipedia is supposed to be about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.13.36 (talk) 05:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Let me add just an example of what makes this piece such a dud. From the first paragraph: "After several years of travelling and teaching, he was awarded a PhD by the University of Melbourne." Really? That's how he got his PhD, by travelling and teaching? This is very poorly written. Please revert back to the version from mid-July. That one was a workable essay. 24 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.13.36 (talk) 05:59, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, the previous version was just as bad, if not worse--it listed almost entirely negative things about Hart. And I do feel Hart (or his proxy) was wrong to essentially threaten the encyclopedia to have information removed on the grounds that his critics didn't know what they were talking about. But reverting back to the mid-July version wouldn't be any more neutral, just differently POV'd. How about instead you go into the history and look for those sources and bring them back to the article, one at a time? Qwyrxian (talk) 06:27, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I have tried to reinsert the material I mentioned above as being from legitimate, peer-reviewed literary journals, but the article appears to be blocked from editing. It is in the pre-July 25 versions of the article, under Reviews. Clearly, Hart or his cronies are trying to control content and are engaging in cyber censorship.24.155.13.36 (talk) 14:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

"Hart and his chronies are engaged in cyber censorship" yes, I can clearly see now why you're complaining so much about text being biased. The article is not, as far as I'm aware, protected. Ironholds (talk) 20:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

If it's not protected, why do I get this message when I try to edit it?--"An automated filter has identified this edit as potentially unconstructive, and it has been disallowed. If this edit is constructive, please report this error." I've reported the error twice to no avail. You may think you are being clever in your dismissal of my opinions, but in fact one of the more significant vandals of this article during the last month or two has an IP address based in Charlottesville, Virginia. That's either Hart himself or a stooge--a student, perhaps, or a family member. As the appointed guardian of this piece, Ironholds, you should not be so sarcastic and dismissive. You seem to have an agenda here of protecting this piece in order to flatter Hart rather than to allow objective reporting on his work.24.155.13.36 (talk) 04:41, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Try to post here what you're trying to put up on the article page. Then maybe we can figure out why you're being prevented from editing. To clarify, I also don't see any protections, so I'm not sure what it is you're trying to add that isn't getting through...one possibilty would be if you're trying to add links to blacklisted sites, like spam sites, Social Networking sites (facebook, etc.)...but I've never seen that specific error before, so I'm just guessing. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:39, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The content you were attempting to add was being blocked by two edit filters, 189 and 260 ; filter 189 runs on all BLP articles and filter 260 runs on every page, including talk pages. But neither of them is specific to this article and I don't think (though I can't be sure) that the OTRS emails had anything to do with this filter stopping the old content from being restored. The reason for the filters' existence is because vandalism, in general, is common enough that Wikipedia as a whole has decided that it is better to have edit filters such as these block a few legitimate edits along with the bad, and then add them back in manually via the False Positive reporting system, than to loosen the control to the point that both bad and good edits are allowed through (which makes the job of reverting vandalism more difficult). I sent you here because at the time of the first false positive report there was almost no discussion on the talk page, however now that a discussion is ongoing, if the others here agree to restoration of the content then I will do what it takes to get the filters to agree. The content you were attempting to paste can be seen here (click the "details" tab to get a diff-like view of each edit filter hit). —Soap— 09:05, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

IP's proposed additions (caught in filter)

Okay, I'm taking a look at those additions now. I think that this submission has everything you were trying to add. Looking paragraph by paragraph:

1. This paragraph seems fine to me, assuming that the reference it's pointing to is from a reliable source.
2. Too long. I could live with the first half of this, again, assuming the reference is reliable. We don't need so much quoting from a single review.
3. I actually like the first half of this; somehow the second set of quotations really speak to me about the interesting task of reviewing poetry. The second half contains OR ("tries to find something positive to say"); if you made that neutral it would be fine.
4. Well...Wikipedia isn't censored, but on the other hand it shouldn't be necessarily titillating. My main question would be the reliability of the source, and, more importantly, how important it is to be in the English Literature Victorian Certificate of Education. We don't want to give undue weight to the syllabus standards of a single state.

That last point brings me to a larger concern--do these critics deserve 4 paragraphs and lengthy direct quotation? I think that doing that would unbalance the POV in the wrong direction. Ideally, I think we should collect the most relevant/important/reliable of these, and then put them together along with some of the info from the Biography section and make a single "Reception of Hart's Poetry" section. What do other editors think?Qwyrxian (talk) 10:21, 18 August 2010 (UTC).

These are good suggestions. As for the second paragraph--everything after the word "mysticism" could be deleted. As for the third paragraph, the OR phrases could easily be changed to neutral phrasing. However, I think the information in the fourth paragraph is relevant. Literary controversies are valid points to cover. Finally, I agree with your final point about combining this material with portions of Biography into a "Reception..." section.24.155.13.36 (talk) 13:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

That works. I'd suggest the awards mentions in the biography and the quotes from "Style" could be merged into a "Reception" section with your material. Ironholds (talk) 15:21, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

New Reception Section

I'm currently working on a new "Reception" section based on the suggestions above; one thing I realized while working on it is that it's time to fix the citations; currently there's two versions in the article--one with inline, embedded full citations, the other with embedded citation names linked to items listed in the Bibliography. Per WP:CITE, we have to use one style consistently; futhermore, either in-line citations or List Defined References are preferred. I personally find it painfully irritating to have to go to the citation, then cross-reference that citation down in the Bibliography; while I know that many academic papers work this way, it's not standard for WP. I hope no one will object to me choosing one over the other; given the articles complex history I don't think I could puzzle out which is the "original" version (WP:CITE says that without consensus, the default is the "original.") Personally, I'd rather go over to LDR (I've recently been persuaded that this is better for editors, and behaves identically for readers), but that would be moving too far from the current style. In any event, I want to share two other things:

1. After reading the page on the Victorian Certificate of Education, I can't see any justification for including that info. This is basically just the list of what high school students in one state in Australia are required to know. In order to include the info, we need pretty much the full paragraph, but doing so gives way to much weight to a very small issue. In effect, I can't see how a local school board's decision about Hart's poetry rises to any important level of notability in the story of Hart's life. If this were a common problem for him, especially if it had happened in other places as well, I could see including it, but it doesn't fit WP:WEIGHT for me. So, for now, I'm leaving it out, and we can debate later about adding it in.
2. I'm working hard to bring down the length of the crtiics' section. Given the awards he's won and the positions he's held, it seems to me that the overall impression in the field of him is positive, so, again per WP:WEIGHT, I don't want the negative to overwhelm the positive. If anyone else has some reason for me to believe that, in fact, most people don't like Hart's poetry, please let me know (obviously, a reliable source would help). Qwyrxian (talk) 03:44, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

May I suggest being a bit chary about leaving in the puffs from Bloom and Simic? Those quotes are sourced to an academic journal (though one so obscure that it's difficult to determine whether it is peer-reviewed). However, the source (O'Reilly) is simply quoting publishers' blurbs from the back of the dust-jackets of Hart's books. This hardly counts as genuine literary criticism or analysis. If you find a quote about Hart from one of Bloom's own books of literary criticism, it might be worth including here, but not these puff pieces. I recommend removing them from this piece because they are not sound criticism, just congratulatory back-slapping. This is payback from them for the positive attention that Hart has paid them in his own works of literary criticism. 24.155.13.36 (talk) 03:59, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

24.155.13.36 raises a good point. The O'Reilly piece explicitly states that those are quotations from the back cover of one of Hart's books. Is that really a reliable source? I don't mean to impute the same motives that IP does, but it is my understanding that cover quotes aren't necessarily terribly authentic, or even necessarily accurate. On the other hand, technically speaking we're supposed to consider the academic publisher as reliable, which means they should have vetted the quotes...I'd like some other opinions, plus, I'm going to ask at WT:RS. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:56, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Works for me. May I ask where you're writing this alt section? It would probably be easier to approve/disapprove/advise on things and get clearer consensus if we could see the content. Ironholds (talk) 16:31, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was "shy" about revealing my in-process work. You can see it at User:Qwyrxian/Hart. The "Reception" section is the working draft; the "Positive Stuff" and "Negative Stuff" are what's left over from the copy-pasting that I was thinking of not putting in. The basic pattern is that par. 1 = Commentary about Hart overall; 2 = Commentary about his poetry specifically; 3 = Commentary about his Hart's criticism work. Especially if we take out the back-cover quotes, I'm worried that the overall feeling is more negative than positive. That's okay, of course, as long as that matches the actual perspective of Hart found in reliable sources, but I'm not clear if that is exactly true at this point. Have a look, let me know what you think. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:06, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I for one like what you're doing here at User:Qwyrxian/Hart. As for the quotes from Bloom and Simic, they are probably "reliable" in that the publisher would not have made them up. But they are just puffery. It would be better to delete these and substitute a quote from Bloom from his book, The Western Canon, in which he has some positive things to say about Hart. I won't pretend to have read all the criticism there is out there on Hart, but a large proportion is indeed negative, so I wouldn't worry too much about misrepresenting the critical consensus. Anyway, this is a good start to a re-edit.24.155.13.36 (talk) 04:53, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I should clarify that I have no access to an academic library--I live in a non-English speaking country, so English books aren't too easily available, and I have no university affiliation so I can't access the one place such things might be found.

Right now I'm leaning towards the idea of letting those quotes stay in for the moment, as we're only quoting them to indicate what those specific critics said. Puffery is allowed as long as we're quoting the puffery, not making it up ourselves. Once better sources are found, we could easily replace them with more "substantive" quotes (ones more fitting the style of the other quotes in the proposed section). 04:59, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

If you email me (so I get your email address) I can send you what journal articles I have access to. Since I'm being portrayed as pro-Hart in some way, a reevaluation of them by you would probably carry more weight. Ironholds (talk) 05:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

• Looking at your rewrite, I like. A few problems:

  "Poet Cyril Wong tries to find something positive to say about this volume" neutral and supported by the sources, my arse.

  "Whether the word was used tenderly in this instance was not determined, though most readers agreed that simply dressing up pornography in iambic pentameter did not automatically constitute poetry" doesn't appear to be in the citation given at all (I'm open to being corrected) Ironholds (talk) 05:17, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, the stuff in the negative and positive sections was not going to be included at all, for reasons of weight and/or NPOV. Basically, that's the leftover chaff I had after editing; I just left it there in case I wanted access to it later. I was intending that only the "Reception" part to go into the article (and, of course, removing any duplication). I'll email you momentarily. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:35, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

• Righto, let me know when you're done. Ironholds (talk) 14:24, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

BTW, I am working on this; but in order to add the info Ironholds sent me, I need an uninterrupted block of time. Rading and incoproating new sources is a bit more involved than just editing. This is top of my "big project" lists. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:59, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Cool beans, will leave you alone :). If any of your big projects involve history, the law or something with academic coverage, I'd be happy to reciprocate and help you out with sourcing and prose. Ironholds (talk) 23:21, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

And if you let the puffery stand in the article, please identify it as such. E.g., "In an blurb on the dustjacket of Book X, Harold Bloom describes Hart as ..." As with the actual reviews: "In scholarly journal X, Leonard describes Hart's poetry as..."

As for the Cyril Wong material, I see no reason why the actual quotes can't be included as well. The lead-in is certainly negative in tone, but the material is relevant because it shows how another poet responds to Hart. Likewise Hart's response to Les Murray is valid and should be included. An earlier version of the article had a section called "Hart and other poets." That could be revived by showing Hart's view of Murray and Judith Wright, and Wong's and Charles Simic's views of Hart.24.155.13.36 (talk) 03:48, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

If the puffery stays, we'll definitely want to site it to the back cover--this was even suggested at WP:RSN. As for the Wong quotes, it's just about weight, It's not typical (at least in my experience) for a Wikipedia article to be filled with positive and negative quotations about someone, as we're an encyclopedia, not a review site. I should rephrase; I do see those types of quotations on video game articles, and some music articles, but I really think we can do better. I mean, there's no poetry equivalent to Meta Critic, but we still don't want to over-burden the article with all the reviews we can find.Qwyrxian (talk) 04:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

New version up

Have a look at User:Qwyrxian/Hart. I tried my best to achieve some sort of balance, based on the sources we had. Specific notes:

• I used sub-heads to separate the reception of "Hart as Poet" from "Hart as Academic".
• This version is quote-heavy. I have, floating around my brain, an idea for how to do this without quotes, but I feel that any significant summarizing will erase important subtleties in many of the critics' positions. If anyone wants to see that, let me know, and I'll actually write it up. But if this version is acceptable, then I won't bother.
• We don't actually need to include quite as many reviewers as I did, so please suggest places to cut (so long as we preserve balance per WP:WEIGHT). We also don't want to invite people to keep adding more and more reviews every time Hart publishes a book or someone reviews an old one.
• I did re-add the Wong, but I chose only the positive quote; looking at the original article, that quote is her summarizing point about the whole article--that while some of the poems had problems, overall, its strengths outweigh the weaknesses. The prior negative quotes were about specific poems in the volume, not the whole thing. To use negative quotes here would be to misrepresent her position.
• Above, IP 24... mentions "Hart's response to Les Murray:" I don't know what that's referring to--it wasn't in the edits you couldn't get past the filter.
• More generally though, we should not include the section "Hart and other poets." It will overlap with the Reception section; for many of the reviewers, we have no easy way to determine whether to put them into the "reception" section or the "poet" section. And it doesn't even make sense as a logical unit of discussion about Hart's life/career.
• In the first sentence, I left in only Bloom's comment (he's much more notable than Simic, and having both in that first sentence made the grammar awkward). However, I would much rather site The Western Canon, if anyone happens to have a copy. While WP:RSN said that we could probably cite the back of a book, it wasn't exactly a certain issue. But Canon is indisputably Bloom's opinion, and, however we may feel about its merits, it's a highly important book in the field.
• I converted all the refs here to inline cites; if we do add this, I'll need to rework the rest of the refs on the page.
• I'm originally an American; I know this article should be in British-style spelling, so if I made any mistakes in that regard, please let me know.

Obviously, I made a lot of other changes, additions, re-wordings, etc. Please provide any and all feedback. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:02, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I'm a massive fan of the rewrite. Brilliant work! :). Ironholds (talk) 07:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and added the rewrite to the article. I fixed the rest of the references while I was at it. I believe that I removed the duplicated info (leaving the prizes duplicated in the lead, as that seems appropriate to me). Of course, if anyone thinks I've moved too fast, revert me (in all or in part) and we'll hash it out here. If you do revert, please come here to explain specifically what needs to be improved. I just wanted to get this up before the weekend sets in and I can't guarantee my participation. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:20, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Reversion of recent content removal

I have reverted the Bold content removal done by User:Max Kovacs. Of course, such a bold change is welcome under WP:BRD philosophy. However, the mass removal seems excessive to me for the following reasons:

1. I don't necessarily see the reviews as unencyclopedic—we include reviews of all sorts of topics on other Wikipedia articles, and I can think of no policy that prevents them. However, we can certainly discuss modifying those reviews, including others, etc. The exact balance is of course in flux--just not the overall idea that reviews are unacceptable. I welcome an explanation of your claim however.
2. To say the article was overly negative seems to me to be wrong as well, since the removal of all of that content seems to leave the article overly positive. Per WP:DUE (part of WP:NPOV, our responsibility is to present a representation of Hart equal to that in that found in reliable sources. This means that the article should be neither overly positive nor overly negative. I believe the removal of all of the material makes the article overly positive. I felt we had struck a balance before, but of course we should discuss the issue.
3. Saying that Hart is primarily a theologian is news to me, and doesn't match what I saw in the sources. However, if you have some reliable sources showing that, then I agree that the article should be changed to reflect that. However, we'll need to see the sources first.

So I invite Max Kovacs and anyone else to comment on this issue here. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:37, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Explanation

Okay, here's the sequence of events:

1. MaxKovacs made changes this morning (my time)
2. I reverted those changes entirely, because I felt they hadn't been explained and went against the consensus we had developed. I wanted him/her to come to the talk page and discuss.
3. Librarianguy made a series of edits now (late night, my time, but still w/in 24 hours, I believe)
4. I forgot that this article was under 1RR restriction, so I made reverts of some of Librarianguy's changes, but not all. I also edited one thing s/he added.
5. I came here to the talk page to explain. While doing so, I looked back up and remembered that this article is under a 1RR restriction.
6. I went back to the article to self-revert, but in the intervening minutes Librarianguy had added another edit.
7. I restored the last revision before I started my reversions tonight.
8. Then I re-added (I think) Librarianguy's last edit. In other words, if I did what I meant to do, I completely self-reverted all my changes tonight, and left Librarianguy's changes intact. I am trying to entirely undo what I did so that I have not broken 1RR.
9. I am here now typing this message. My humblest apologies for forgetting this article's editing restrictions. I'll add something else, but I want to get this explanation up. Qwyrxian (talk) 13:35, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Having said all of that, I'm a bit concerned by the fact that neither MaxKovacs nor Librarianguy had any edits prior to this article. MaxKovacs has not come back to discuss his changes. Now, the tone of the edit summaries is similar, but not identical, so I don't know if they are the same person; for some reason, I actually think they're not the same, but editing with the same agenda. I also don't believe that these editors are entirely new, because the changes being made are quite sweeping, and significant amounts of prose from a variety of sources are being added in a very short period of time. To me, that implies that the edits were planned prior to coming here, but, again, I'm merely hypothesizing. Obviously, we'll have to see what shapes up from here, but it is a bit worrisome if "new" editors regularly appear to make changes to the article, without discussing the changes either before or after on the talk page (I'll go invite Librarianguy to do so right after I post this). So I just want to ask everyone editing this and watching this to please engage in a discussion here, rather than making bold sweeping changes. BRD is a fair policy, but usually it doesn't work to have multiple editors making bold changes at the same time; and part of BRD is that after reversion, you discuss on the talk page. Qwyrxian (talk) 13:41, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Really?

My apologies for not assuming good faith, but now we have our third new editor, coming to the Kevin Hart article within minutes of signing up, and making significant changes (including large quotations and sources). I'm asking all three people here, honestly--are you 3 separate people? If so, are you working together to change this article? Why is it that, as someone who literally knew nothing about Hart until I started working on this article and reading the sources about him, the article now reads much more like an encomium to Hart than it does a neutral encyclopedic work? Some of the negative criticism remains, and for that I do commend the new editors, but now it's significantly outweighed by excessive quotes of praise. Furthermore, I think it's quite worrisome that, without evidence other than the current position he holds, we are asked to trust that, in fact, is not known mostly as a poet but is known as a theologian. For that matter, that claim doesn't even match the article--if, as one or more of the editors claimed, Hart is a theologian, why have so many additions been made to the poetry section? Perhaps part of the confusion is that just because a person calls him or herself a particular thing does not mean that that thing is what makes them most notable for Wikipedia purposes.

I had actually been thinking, on my way into work this morning, of listing up the specific details that concerned me about Librarianguy's additions, but now I'm much more concerned about how we can edit the article collaboratively given the way the recent change have been made. I'll go make the good faith effort to invite the newest editor to the talk page, and wait, for the moment. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:32, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Modifying the recent reversions

Some of the added info, I think, is great. Some of the removed info, though, was also great. Similarly, some of the new info is not good, in particular that it is excessive. Because I want to take this carefully and slowly, I'm going to start editing the article in stages. Today I'm going to go through and remove only those things that are pretty undeniably unacceptable. Specifically, the following:

• Who's Who is not a reliable source, as far as I know. Being invited to be in Who's Who is an independent process, and thus helps establish notability. All of the actual information in a person's Who's Who article, however, is self-submitted and no effort is made to verify it (again, this is my understanding, and if someone has evidence differently, I'd love to hear it). Basically, while getting into Who's Who requires some sort of editorial judgment, the actual articles are basically a paper version of Linkedin. As such, those citations have to go. For now, I'll keep the information, and add a citation needed tag somewhere in that paragraph (I don't want to overload the lead with cn's, though). I'm willing to assume the information itself is probably true for now, as I'm guessing Hart didn't lie about the awards he's won, but we'll need a better source eventually. As a side note, these do not meet the exception carved out for self-published sources, because they are "unduly self-serving" (as the guideline discusses at WP:SPS).
• I'm adjusting the second half of the quote from Turner about Hart's book Samuel Johnson and the Culture of Property. While the previous editors were wrong to say that the point was about Bloom, it was confusing without the understanding that that was referencing a dustjacket quote. As such, I'll leave out the mention of Bloom, but re-add Turner's opinion that "the volume [Hart's book] frequently degenerates into anecdote and speculation...."
• I'm changing the phrasing in the paragraph about Paul. We should never claim things like Book/Comments X are "wide-ranging and important," as that's clearly non-neutral.

Those are the only changes I'm going to make for today. I want people to have some time to comment if they disagree with those alterations before I go forward with more. But I do want to clarify in all fairness that I believe substantially more editing will be required. As always, I would really love it if other editors, especially the new editors, would engage here on the talk page. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:47, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, one more set of changes, but that's all for now, I promise. The paragraph that starts by talking about Paul Kane has some problems. First, two parts are WP:NPOV: the beginning that said that his comments are "wide-ranging and important"--that's pure personal opinion not backed up by a source, and the part that said that Khalip's book is the "standard reference"--that's not only not verified, but, in fact, unverifiable. There is no way that we can possibly determine what the "standard" reference book is without surveying college courses and academics across the world. Conceivably if you had a quote from a highly reliable source, you could say something like "Academic X says that Khalip's book is the standard reference for analyzing Hart's work. (+ reference)." I also cleaned up the grammar in that paragraph, as it was very unclear what was going on in the beginning. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's been about 3 days since my last set of edits, with no change, so I'm going to go forward with more. I just one minute ago took out some more Who's Who entries that I missed before, replacing them with cn tags. Now I'm going to go back to the article and start in on trimming down the massive overquotation that was added. More sources and reviews are fine, but we shouldn't be quoting at such length. I'll report back here with details when I'm done. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:04, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, here's what I changed:

• Removed the sentence: "Kevin Hart's poetry has been the subject of many articles and doctoral dissertations." This may be true, but I have no way of knowing if Hart's coverage is particularly notable, more than other poets (past or present). Without a citation, it's unclear that this is anything more than puffery.
• Removed the second half of the Davidson quote: ", in 'The Room' and in the 'Dark One' poems, all of which take mysticism and Australian poetry into new territory by ultimately proposing a Poet God beyond reach of language but infused in the writing process." Too long, and not very clear out of context.
• Changed "Zhang concludes a long essay on the poet" to "Zhang concludes an article on two of Hart's poems," as the latter is accurate, and the "length" of an article is irrelevant.
• Removed the last 2 sentences of Zhang's quote, because it literally makes no sense to a general audience. Often this issue comes up more in science articles, but in critical works of the humanities, it can appear, as well-we have to remember that the readers of this article should be able to understand, at least to some degree, the claims in it without knowing the details of Levinas' philosophy, along with a long list of terms that clearly have a particular meaning to someone in the field.
• Removed these sentences, "An earlier essay by Martin Harrison analyzes Hart's imagery of names and horizons in detail. Other important essays on Hart's poetry have been written by Paul Kane and Gary Catalano." Those sentences provide no useful information content. Kane is covered in the next paragraph, and it's not important merely to mention that other people have written about him (unless those people are somehow notable and the very fact of their writing on Hart implies something about his work/notability.

I thought that I'd be able to do more, but after tackling just 2 paragraphs I see I've already made substantial changes. As such, I'll wait and see if any feedback is incoming before I do more. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:17, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Today I added back in two things that Luxetveritas had added (his/her contributions were all reverted because another editor thought (and I agree) that overall they seem to be POV pushing): Some further info from Bloom that does seem to be relevant, along with one citation for one of the awards. I had to awkwardly change the award sentence so that it's not in chronological order, but I didn't like the way that the citation seemed to imply that everything in the sentence was verified when in fact it only confirmed one of the awards. I just realized I forgot to keep the cn tag at the end, which I'll re-add.

Of course, the bigger problem is that the section is still horribly bloated. I'll keep trimming down quotes slowly over the next few days, but others are of course welcome to help. At this point, we need to be wary about removing reviews wholesale without justification here on the talk page. For example, Luxetveritas removed two negative reviews of Bloom because the reviewers were in his/her opinion, of no consequence and ephemeral. Of course, we need more than just personal opinion here, so please discuss. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I haven't thought about this in a while...I'm now going after the third paragraph in the poetry section.

• There's too much from Paul Kane; I'm cutting the comments about specific poems and leaving only the first, general comment.
• From the intro to O'Reilly, I took out "In contrast to the emphasis of some critics on the religious dimension of Hart's poetry", as there's no evidence from anything other than O'Reilly that other reviewers focus on the religions issue.
• I took out the entire Brennan quote, and replaced it with a much shorter summary. The quote makes no sense to someone from outside the field, the section is already too long, and the same idea is conveyed with just the summary. One thing we have to remember is that ideally we'd rather have our own prose than quotes from others.

Finally, from the "Biography" section, I also took out the list of visiting professorships. We don't need to list every position Hart has ever held--as I said in the edit summary, this is an encyclopedia article, not a resume. I don't see how those positions are necessary to tell Hart's full story. I actually think that a lot of the lead and biography sections need to be trimmed, because we should be focusing on highlights, not listing ever award or other accomplishment. I'm hesitant, though, because I don't know which are most worth keeping...in any event, I leave that, with the rest, for another day. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:18, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

i reverted a swag of changes made by a new editor as they were uncited and appeared to be pushing a particular POV. Please discuss changes here before making them. Gillyweed (talk) 20:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

My apologies to all for the over-active editing. I made some sweeping changes to the format of Hart's page today without checking in. I'm new to wikipedia, and wasn't aware that I needed to clear changes first! I was mainly trying to sort the information into relevant sections. There's so much biographical info, that I thought it might be better sorted into a "bio" section and a "career" section. And much of the info seems extraneous -- why, for instance do we need to know that Hart's grades in elementary school were poor? I also removed quotes by Pam Brown and Cyril Wong. Brown is really a peripheral figure in the world of Australian poetry. She hasn't published much, and I suspect that she posted her own review as an act of self-promotion. My own hunches aside, though, Brown simply isn't a reputable source. I think we could find better. Some goes for Cyril Wong. It's certainly true that Wong has reviewed Hart's material, but I don't see why that merits a mention on Hart's page. Wong doesn't seem particularly important. I also think that it might be alright to cite Who's Who, so long as the citations are limited to biographical information. Phainein (talk) 02:10, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Theology

Hart's section on Theology and Lit. Crit is pretty inadequate. Hart made his name as a poet, but most of his publications these days are in Philosophy and Theology. Why not remove the "reception" heading, and just sort it all into "poetry" and "theology and philosophy"? In any case, it seems strange to have a section on the reception of Hart's work in theology.Phainein (talk) 02:33, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

That is a possibility. The reason a reception heading was added is that we were trying to separate out information about Hart himself from opinions that others have expressed regarding his work. We could, instead, go with a section on Poetry, with a subsection on reception, a section on Theology/Philosophy, with reception of that (if needed), and a section on Literary Criticsm (with reception as needed). It is entirely possible that some of the info currently in the Bio section (if it can be sourced) can be moved into one or more of those sections.

Regarding his theology and philosophy, do you have any sources in mind that would help us show that this is the topic for which Hart is most known now? I, unfortunately, don't have access to a university library or archiving site like JSTOR, so I don't have any way to do research of this type myself. However, I am more than happy to read anything you want to point me to and help discuss how to get it into the article.

Let me take a look, and see if I can find some sources about Hart's theological and philosophical work. I think the issue here is that Hart is more widely known to the general public as a poet, but probably better known in the academy as a theologian and philosopher.Phainein (talk) 03:10, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Finally, please note that the fact that he publishes regularly in the theology/philosophy now is important, and should be noted, but it may not be what this article should focus on . That is, many famous people do many different things, but their Wikipedia articles focus on those thing that make them notable, while mentioning other things they do in brief. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:01, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Pam Brown Quote

The quotes by Pam Brown seems unnecessary. I get that the article should have diverging view points, but Brown really has no standing as a reviewer. It would be like quoting a random blog next to the NY Review of Books, and acting like they are on the same level. I agree that we should present positive and negative reviews, but shouldn't the quality of the negative reviews match the quality of the positive?Phainein (talk) 02:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The question is, is Chicago Review a reliable source (as defined by Wikipedia at WP:RS), and of enough importance to include here? Note that we don't apply the same standards as an academic journal, looking strictly to things like a journal's citation index (although it can matter) or the importance of the reviewer (although, again, it can matter). Wikipedia does have a policy, WP:DUE, which says that viewpoints should be included only according to their relative importance in the real world. When I worked the last "neutral" version, I read quite a number of reviews that spoke negatively of Hart's poetry; not all of those ended up in the version of the article I wrote at that time. It seemed to me at the time that there was at least a sizeable viewpoint that was not that impressed with Hart's work, even though there were many others who were.

I do think Chicago Review is reputable, but the Sheppard quote doesn't seem to say much about the content or literary character of Hart's poems. I suppose that is also my problem with Brown's quote: it doesn't add much to the understanding of Hart's poetry, and also has a weird ad hominem tone to it.Phainein (talk) 03:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Since you seem to be knowledgeable on the subject of Hart, maybe you can help sort this out. If you had to look to the most influential, important places to find critical reviews of Hart (poetry, criticism, theology, whatever), where would you look? Why? That is, how can we determine here the right amount of information to include and from what sources? Qwyrxian (talk) 03:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I have read some good essays on Hart's poetry that might be helpful. What I especially like about these essays is that they attempt to explain what Hart is doing in his poems, rather than simply saying that his poetry is good or bad. Is there a way for me to send you a pdf?Phainein (talk) 03:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Finally, I have to ask--are you speaking for the group now, Phainein? You were not the editor that asked to deleted the Brown reference--it was deleted previously by an anonymous IP, and by [[User:Luxetveritas7] (who may be the same person, possibly Luxet just forgot to log in, since the edit summary was substantially the same). Do you have a connection with these other editor(s)? Qwyrxian (talk) 03:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I do know Luxet, but I have no idea who the other editor(s) are. In any case, I do promise that I am not Kevin Hart! Plus, I'm perfectly open to being criticized if my edits seem biased (though I do resent Gillyweed's suggestion that my very location in Virginia suggests an inherent bias that might disqualify my contributions to the page. Then again, I also respect Gillyweed's commitment to neutrality!) I'll do my best to be as neutral as possible.Phainein (talk) 03:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I suppose the real question I have is: should we be documenting commentary on Hart's poetry or trying to give readers some idea of the general features of his poetry? If it is the former, then the Brown and Wong quotes might be relevant. If the latter, then perhaps we could find material that explains Harts poetry rather than judging it as good or bad. What do you think?Phainein (talk) 03:03, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I think we need both, in moderation. We should have a basic idea of how well received he is in the field, based on his awards and comments others have made, and we should have a critical description of what his poetry is often concerned about. In that regard, I think we want to, when possible, choose commentary about whole books, or, ideally, about "periods" of Harts work or even his whole work in general. We want to avoid commentary on individual poems (unless that poem is somehow extraordinarily notable for Hart). Another new editor who tried to remove Brown (and who was reverted by someone else) mentioned a book on Hart; the comment wasn't clear, but is there a whole book published about Hart's work? Qwyrxian (talk) 13:52, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Harold Bloom

What would you guys think about removing some of Harold Bloom's praise of Hart? It seems a little over-the-top? Perhaps one quote would suffice to show that Bloom likes Hart's workPhainein (talk) 02:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Personally, yes, although I'm not neutral on the subject of Harold Bloom in general. However, my opinion has always been that quoting a blurb from the dust jacket of a book is hardly useful praise--my understanding is that those are intentionally solicited and not necessarily reflective of the exact opinion of the person being quoted. If Bloom had something useful to say in an actual book that he wrote, that may be more useful (and likely more moderate). I only left it in when I revamped the article because I thought taking it out would be too upsetting to Hart's supporters. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:53, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

I have seldom read a more boring paragraph anywhere, much less on WP. How about telling us why Professor Hart is notable as a poet, not the details of his career? Wolfview (talk) 18:38, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I'd suggest moving the biographical info to the "biography" section, and giving a general overview of Hart's work.something like the following (of course, citations would have to be added):

Kevin John Hart (born 5 July 1954) is a British-Australian theologian, philosopher and poet. He is currently Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies and Chair of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Virginia. As a theologian and philosopher, Hart's work epitomizes the "theological turn" in phenomenology, with a focus on figures like Maurice Blanchot, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion and Jacques Derrida. As a poet, Hart's work addresses a broad range of phenomena, from the religious to the erotic to the quotidian. His poetic manner, according to Martin Harrison, "is to portray a sense-of or feeling-for a thing rather than an image of it, and to offer a style of perception already suffused with a reflection on its own intentionality."Phainein (talk) 19:22, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I totally didn't look at this when I responded to the next post. I like it for the most part. I'm concerned with the sentence that starts "As a poet...", as those are some loaded terms that aren't necessarily easy for a lay-person to understand. They will be fine as long as whatever we eventually have in the Poetry section fully supports and explains the claims. I definitely think it's better than what we have now. Some of the bio information should definitely be saved and moved into the Biography section (although not all of it). If you feel like making the change yourself, I certainly won't object. You can always move the bio info to the talk page temporarily while we decide what parts are worth keeping. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:57, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you're right about the "as a poet" sentence.I was trying to come up with a concise way to sum up Hart's poetry. That's a hard thing to do. I'm really more familiar with his theological and philosophical work. Maybe we should leave it mostly unchanged, except for moving some of the biographical info. We can always come back later after we get a better feel for how the page is shaping up.Phainein (talk) 12:50, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I was just about to make the changes you recommended above (including the questionable but, in my opinion, better than we have now info about poetry), but I realized that I don't know where the Harrison quote came from. While we don't have to source information in the lead in general, we do still have to provide a citation for all quotations. I'm going to try to move some of the bio info out for now, and once you provide the sourcing for Harrison, we can add the rest of that in. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Biography

I edited the first paragraph of Hart's biography today. I cleaned up the writing, and removed some extraneous information. Specifcally, I don't think it is necessary to mention Hart's performance in elementary school, nor the careers of his father and mother. Those things are, of course, true, but they don't have much to do with Hart's career as a poet and theologian. Besides, one has to draw a line somewhere; we can't include every fact about his life.Phainein (talk) 19:10, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I definitely like the edits to the biography section--you hit the nail on the head by saying that we have to draw a line somewhere. In addition, I think we should move a bunch of the info in the lead down to the bio section. The lead should just summarize the rest of the article and explain simply why Hart is notable; thus, I think all of the info about his schooling (except maybe the PhD itself) should be in the biography section, not the lead. If you (or others) agree, I can move the info later today(ish). Qwyrxian (talk) 21:56, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

That sounds great to me!Phainein (talk) 22:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I have been ignoring this page for a while, but thought I might get back to it. I was looking over Hart's biography again, and thought I might cut the last 2 sentences about the "editorial panels." It doesn't seem relevant to his biography. In any case the sentences are saved below if anyone feels strongly about putting them back. Phainein (talk) 13:07, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

In 2010 he was elected as a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology (USA). He serves on the editorial panels of Cahiers Blanchot, Faith and Philosophy, New Literary History, Christianity and Literature, and Religion and Literature. He sits on the editorial board of Oeuvres d’Emmanuel Lévinas, published by Grasset in Paris, co-edits the series “Thresholds: Philosophy and Theology” at the University of Notre Dame Press, and sits on the editorial board of the series “Perspectives on Contemporary European Philosophy” (Fordham UP) and “Crosscurrents” (Edinburgh UP).[6]

I sweat, I think about this article every few days, and I keep thinking, "Next project, next project..." Thank goodness there's no deadline. I concur with the deletion--most full time academics serve on one or more editorial staffs. In order to keep it, I think we'd have to establish that one or more of those is a particularly important journal, such that it really means something to be an editor there. There's still more to be done elsewhere—I think the "Theology and Criticism" section is a bit disorganized, for instance—but in due time, I suppose. Qwyrxian (talk) 13:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

What's the problem here?

I'm an American professor in California, and I heard Hart give a lecture here some time back. I looked up this page out of curiosity. What's the problem here? Who is it goes hunting for negative reviews and overlooks the articles, the chapters about this guy? There's even a book on him that I read in the University Library. Not a word. Looks to me that some one is out gunning for him. Unfair, I say! Eccola (talk) 00:58, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

PS

Hey, my wife just reminded me to ask why you don't quote the Harvard Review piece on Young Rain. Eccola (talk) 01:01, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Welcome. Please come and edit this page, if you have useful references. Please learn about Wikipedia before you start and then as this is a contentious page, please come and discuss your changes here before making them. Gillyweed (talk) 01:41, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Poetry Section

How about splitting the poetry section into two portions: one documenting features of Hart's poetry -- e.g., philosophical themes, images, etc; and another documenting Hart's reception. If you guys don't object, I might take a crack at it this weekend. I'll save the current text on the talk page, so that it can be easily restored if necessary.Phainein (talk) 01:40, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

May I just say, as one who was originally involved in the "Kevin Hart problem", how great it is to finally see this article coming together. I backed off a long time ago when the problem became way too complex for me and the knowledge I had on the subject. Well done Q & P in particular - you've done a lot of hard work. Sterry2607 (talk) 10:57, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I have been "ignoring" this one for a while....As to your idea, Phainein, I think it's a great idea. I think that you were on track earlier to say that we don't want to focus too much on the reception, as much as we focus on the overarching themes, styles, etc. Still, I think we want a little bit to say what's his overall reception. I think we capture that in part already in the article by the very fact that he's received so many awards (assuming that those awards are actually notable). If others, however, have been critical, I think it's worth mentioning that. It would actually be ideal if we could get a secondary source saying something like, "While Hart's work is generally praised, it has been criticized as well." That is just like how we preview large-scale, well-researched overviews of a field to looking at primary research documents. So, if there were some work, book, review, encomium, etc., to Hart, that adequately captured the impression of the field of him overall, this would be far preferable to commentary on individual books or poems.

As strange as it might be to say this, I'd be tempted to ask Hart, or one of his students. In other words, imagine I was a beginning research in poetry, and I wanted to know what the first, primary, book/article one should go to that gives as much of an overview of Hart's whole career, what would they recommend? Obviously, such a recommendation might be self-serving, but it would might point us in the right direction...Now, I still can't figure out if Hart is actually important enough to have been the subject of such a work.... Qwyrxian (talk) 04:58, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I've been ignoring the page for a while too. Below is the Poetry section as it currently stands. I'm getting ready to make some changes, and just wanted to save this version in case we want to put it back. I'm leaving the reception part pretty much unchanged for now. I removed Pam Brown's quote plus another positive quote. I figure that removing one positive and one negative quote maintains some sort of balance! Right now most of the positive quotes come from Harold Bloom -- though I am in agreement with Qwyrixian that jacket blurbs are suspect -- and the negative comes from Geoffrey Lehman. Both are respected in the Poetry world, as far as I can tell. In any case, we can always add things back in. Phainein (talk) 21:38, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

In reading over my additions, it seems that I've added to the already copious amount of quotes! I'm not sure what to do about that. Maybe we can figure out how to put some of them in our own words.Phainein (talk) 01:00, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Prior Poetry section copied from article

Style and publications Hart was first inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley after his English teacher read him Ozymandias, and also lists T. S. Eliot, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Éluard, Vasko Popa, Zbigniew Herbert and Gerard Manley Hopkins as influences. He first began writing poetry as a teenager, partly thanks to a Shelley anthology he had purchased and partly as a way to cope with Brisbane's hot summers, which he was not used to; he would go to the Brisbane Public Library, which had air conditioning, and there read a wide variety of poetry. Originally an Anglican, Hart became a Catholic in 1980, and he has been classed as a "religious poet". Hart is mainly known as a theologian as well as a poet. Reception Poetry On the back cover of Kevin Hart's 1999 volume of poetry, Wicked Heat, Harold Bloom described Hart as the "most outstanding Australian poet of his generation", and one of "the major living poets in the English language". Bloom also names Hart as one of the eleven canonical writers of Australia and New Zealand in his "The Western Canon." Hart appears also under Italian poetry as the translator of Giuseppe Ungaretti. Hart has received multiple awards, including the Greybeal-Gowen Prize for Poetry in 2008, the John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award in 1977, the Mattara Poetry Award in 1982, the Wesley Michel Wright Award in 1984, the NSW Premier's Award in 1985, the Victorian Premier's Award in 1985, the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry in 1991 and 1996, the Christopher Brennan Award in 1999. In an essay on Hart's poetry and theology, Toby Davidson writes, "Kevin Hart's poetry cannot be separated from his multiple, enduring engagements with mysticism and mystical poetics. He is an innovator, suggesting new approaches to the mystical in the free facets of *attending*." Shaoyang Zhang concludes a long essay on the poet as follows: "Through the examination of 'Nineteen Songs' and 'Amo Te Solo', we have seen Hart, like Levinas, exhibits the Christian model(s) in the phenomenological relationship between speakers and their beloveds in his distinctly poetic language. Paul Kane has commented on a number of Kevin Hart's poetry volumes. For example, he says that "Kevin Hart’s sense that in poetry the origin is never coterminous with the beginning leads to a poetry that is finely tuned to absence and withdrawal." Nathanael O'Reilly says, "Hart is often labelled a religious poet, and the bulk of the criticism of his poetry focuses on the religious, spiritual and philosophical aspects of his work, and the relationship between his poetry and his philosophical and theological writings. However, Hart is also an intensely physical and sensual poet, one whose work examines the effects of the physical environment on humans, explicitly addresses physical aspects of romantic relationships, and uses physical actions and sensations as metaphors for spiritual communion." Other critics, Michael Brennan among them, point to philosophical aspects of Hart's poetry, comparing, for instance, aspects of "The Room" with some of Heidegger's theories. Reviewer Pam Brown wrote of Hart's 1999 Wicked Heat, "It’s as if these poems were written by a very serious old man and, apart from a recognisable poetic compulsion to write, it’s sometimes hard to grasp the point of this transparent yet obtuse set", while Christian Sheppard, reviewing the same volume, said "The primary pleasure of Hart's poetry, however, is an easy rhythmed, swiftly flowing line tracing the moment-by-moment impressions of an often impassioned yet always lucid mind". Of Hart's 2008 volume, Young Rain, fellow Australian poet and critic Geoffrey Lehmann writes, "In general I was disappointed by Young Rain and found the religious poems self-indulgent. There were too many generalised symbols such as recurrent clocks and wine and stars. Everything was too smooth and vague, evading meaning." Lehmann did find one poem "full of specific detail, that's very funny and also touching" and concludes that perhaps there were "other worthwhile poems in this book I have overlooked." Writing about the same volume, poet Cyril Wong said, "Here is a poetry that bravely attempts to speak to a universal experience of desire and love, but also loss and mourning. It is full of equivocation and a brazen sentimentality that occasionally undermines the force of its message. Yet, as a book, Young Rain has enough of a convincing sensuality and a persistent sense of metaphysical wonder to make up for its deficiencies."

Removal of List of Interviews

I just removed the following paragraph:

Several interviews with Hart are available: Earl Livings, “On a Clean Page: An Interview with Kevin Hart,” Bystander, 1: 1 (1992), 43-53, David McCooey, “‘Intersecting Worlds’: An Interview with Kevin Hart,” Meridian, 15: 1 (1996), 23-37. John Kinsella, “An Interview with Kevin Hart,” Salt, 10 (1997), 256-75; Lee Spinks, “‘Sketching the Horizon’: An Interview with Kevin Hart,” Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 35:2 (2000), 5-14; Paul Mitchell, “Interview with Kevin Hart,” Cordite, 8 (2001) (www.cordite.org.au/09/mitchell,hart.asp); Stephen Watson, “Interview,” Verse, 20: 2/3, 49-73. Shorter version reprinted in The Verse Book of Interviews (Amherst, MA: Verse Press, 2005), 302-19; Julian Wolfreys, “Going to School with Socrates: Interview with Kevin Hart,” Thinking Difference: Critics in Conversation, ed. Julian Wolfreys (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004), 111-118; Mark Manopoloulos, "A Thinking Otherwise," With Gifted Thinkers (Peter Lang, 2010), 75-100.

This is unencyclopedic, as it tells the reader nothing about Hart himself. We could consider putting these into a "Further Reading" section; alternatively, if any of them are available online, they could go into an External Links section (without having read any of them, by titles and descriptions it seems like they would qualify). Do others view these as important enough to include in a tertiary section? I'm willing to set up the formatting as best as I can. I just know it shouldn't be in a prose paragraph in the middle of his Poetry section. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:09, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you're right to cut this paragraph. I don't think it is important enough to keep as a "further reading section," but it may be good to put the Paul Mitchell interview (and any others that are online -- I'd be happy to help track them down) in an external links section.Phainein (talk) 00:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

God, this article is a pile of dreck. Hart's cronies have been trying to control it for over a year now. It was acceptable until about September 2009. Sterry had done a terrific job keeping it neutral. The problem is all these Charlottesville graduate students whom Hart has manipulated into interfering with the article. Hart is an insignificant nobody in the world of contemporary poetry, but you'd think he was a nobel laureate the way the lines in this war have been drawn.24.155.13.36 (talk) 04:53, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion. Any chance you want to help us fix it? You'll note that several of us are still working on improving the article, although not in any great haste. Further, you might also note that some have claimed that Hart is much less a poet than he is a religious scholar, and perhaps that might be a relevant change in what makes him famous. Mind you, I'm not certain of that, but it is a claim being made. Furthermore, as much as I personally think Bloom is not worth listening to, his opinions on who is or isn't important are often considered an indication that the person is more than an "insignificant nobody." In any event, you actually editing the article will be more helpful than just telling us that it's "dreck". Qwyrxian (talk) 09:15, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

There used to be some really good insights about his poetry here but now they've have been deleted. I'd like to see those go back in, but I feel any effort I made to reinsert these would just be reverted. I know it would violate Wikipedia polocy to ban any editors with AP addresses in Charlottesville, but you won't get real objectivity on this until you can find a way to keep Hart himself, and all his graduate students, off this page. At this point, Hart has found a way to hijack the article, apparently because he's so insecure he can't tolerate people reading negative quotations about his work. Let's not forget that his first move was to try to have this article about him removed, stating that readers interested in his work could go to Amazon.com--where he can of course more easily control things. (This is all on this very talk page.) I apologize for the "dreck" comment; your edits have helped considerably to resist the intrusions of Hart into his own article, but the tidal influence of vapid praise and puffery is still there. 24.155.13.36 (talk) 14:00, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

And I continue to do my best. We were in a better situation before because we had an admin watching over and enforcing 1RR, but that admin has given up the bit. In some ways though, the article before wasn't quite right--it was more a collection of reviews than it was an article about Hart and his work. This is not the standard way articles about artists are written; some criticism is okay, but not entirely. At some point I'll get back to working on this; I've been a bit distracted by other tasks recently. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:22, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Copyright problem

This article has been reverted by a bot to this version as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) This has been done to remove User:Accotink2's contributions as they have a history of extensive copyright violation and so it is assumed that all of their major contributions are copyright violations. Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. VWBot (talk) 05:25, 10 December 2010 (UTC)