Published 23 March 2009 · Main Posts Response to Kris Hemensley Rjurik Davidson In the latest Overland, Kris Hemensley criticises the Overland editors’ decision to allow a response by poet John Kinsella to a review of two of his works by Elizabeth Campbell. Hemensley wonders why we have accorded special favours for John, when it is not our usual practice to publish responses to a review. We did not, he points out, invite Elizabeth to participate in a debate. She has, in Hemensley’s eyes, been ambushed. All in all, in Hemensley’s view, we’ve used both writers to create a little sensation on behalf of the magazine. We offer the following explanation: 1) In our opinion, the review was not your typical review. It was, in fact, extremely critical of the work of a poet who has many publications, and is a long-time correspondent of Overland. It was thus natural that we would have to let John know of the impending review, and offer him the chance to respond. 2) We decided to publish the review and response side by side, which we figured would allow our readers to assess both arguments. Before publication we notified Elizabeth that John was responding and that we would publish it in the same issue. We offered her the option of seeing it before the issue was published. This, we reasoned, would allow her the option of pulling the review if she felt ‘ambushed’. 3) We also offered Elizabeth the right of response. 4) In all of this, we were conscious that we wanted to make sure everyone was treated fairly, and that we were negotiating a difficult terrain. We wanted to publish the review, despite the fact that it was so critical, because we don’t want to discourage critical reviews. But we also felt that given its nature, John should probably have the right of response. It was a difficult situation to negotiate, but it seems to us that the two pieces work together well to bring to light some issues in Australian poetry. Rjurik Davidson Rjurik Davidson is a writer, editor and speaker. Rjurik’s novel, The Stars Askew was released in 2016. Rjurik is a former associate editor of Overland magazine. He can be found at rjurik.com and tweets as @rjurikdavidson. More by Rjurik Davidson › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 16 August 202416 August 2024 · Poetry pork lullaby Panda Wong but an alive pig / roots in the soil /turning it over / with its snout / softening the ground / is this a hymn 28 March 20249 April 2024 · Main Posts Why we should value not only lived experience, but also lived expertise Sukhmani Khorana In the wake of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I want to extend the central idea of El Gibbs’s 2022 essay on 'lived expertise' and argue that in media accounts of racism, analytical expertise and lived experience ought to be valued together and even in the same body.