Review of Sheila E. Murphy’s "Escritoire"

Here is my review of Sheila E. Murphy’s Escritoire:

https://senecareview.hws.edu/reviews/on-sheila-e-murphys-escritoire

My Thanks to Sheila for letting me do it and to Tod Edgerton for accepting it for Seneca Review.

The Academisation of Avant-garde Poetry Revisited

Some years ago, The Argotist Online did a feature called ‘The Academisation of Avant-garde Poetry’ which examined the relationship between academia and avant-garde poetic practice. The aim was to open up discussion around what seemed to be an increasing tendency within English departments in both the US and the UK to monopolise the practice, discourse, dissemination and publication of avant-garde poetry. In effect, this was creating a sort of “gold standard” by which such work could be measured, validated and deemed worthy of academic attention. The consequence was that certain forms of avant-garde poetry fell out of favour, both within the academy and with poetry publishers of academically “approved” avant-garde poetry.

I thought the most effective way to frame the feature was to invite contributions from US and UK academics, asking them to respond directly to the idea of academic encroachment into the sphere of avant-garde poetry. To that end, I approached a number of academics in the US and the UK who were involved, to varying degrees, in these developments.

The feature suggested that academic poetic production was supported by flourishing university creative writing programmes. The University of Pennsylvania, for instance, hosted initiatives such as the Kelly Writers House, the PennSound website and the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, all of which were broadly sympathetic to academically situated avant-garde poetry. The university also took over Jacket2, an influential online poetics journal originally edited by the independent John Tranter, thereby bringing it within an institutional framework.

And similar things were happening in the UK, with various institutions such as the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre at Birkbeck (University of London), the MA Poetic Practice course at Royal Holloway (the University of London), the North West Poetry and Poetics Network (Manchester Metropolitan University), the MA Creative Writing: Innovation and Experiment course (Salford University) and the Poetry and Poetics Research Group (Edge Hill University), all played a role in promoting academically aligned avant-garde poetry.

Out of this expanding network of academic patronage in the UK emerged two closely affiliated organisations: The Other Room reading series and Knives Forks and Spoons Press. Both maintained strong connections to the MA Creative Writing: Innovation and Experiment programme at Salford University, with several of its students being published by the press and featured in the reading series.

Given these developments, one might have argued at the time that the term “avant-garde” had, in effect, been appropriated by the academy. As a result, it had come to be associated with forms of poetic practice that could themselves be considered “establishment”, to the point where the term’s historical resonances risked becoming diluted or even meaningless.

The central concern, then, was the emergence of a two-tier system: on one side, experimental poetry that is institutionally sanctioned and legitimised, and on the other, experimental work that exists outside those structures. Practitioners of the latter are often excluded for a range of reasons—sometimes due to a lack of recognised academic or literary credentials, but more fundamentally because their work may be perceived as insufficiently “knowing”, or too “primitive”, when measured against the more theoretically informed modes of experimental writing fostered within certain MA programmes.

Looking back at this now, what interests me most is not so much whether the argument was right or wrong, but how strongly the landscape of poetry seemed to organise itself into recognisable centres of gravity. At the time, it felt as though academic poetic output (particularly of an avant-garde or experimental kind) was not only active, but forming into something like a system, with visible institutions, programmes and networks giving it structure.

University-affiliated initiatives and publications gave the impression of a self-reinforcing ecosystem for experimental poetry. These were not marginal or obscure enclaves, but well-resourced, visible platforms that seemed to legitimise and disseminate particular kinds of “innovative” writing. The fact that independent projects could be absorbed into, or aligned with, university structures only reinforced the sense that the academy was becoming a natural home for avant-garde practice. From where I was sitting, it felt as though these institutions were not just supporting avant-garde poetry, but quietly defining its terms: influencing what counted as innovation, and what did not. 

And though the boundaries between institution and independent activity did not disappear, they often appeared porous in one direction: toward the academy. For a time, it was easy to feel that experimental poetry was being gathered into an identifiable, and to some extent self-validating, framework.

It was in this context that I found myself questioning the continued usefulness of the term “avant-garde”. Historically, the term carries connotations of opposition, rupture and marginality. Yet what I was seeing, or believed I was seeing, looked less like a marginal formation and more like an emerging establishment, with its own pathways of recognition and support. The idea that the avant-garde might, in effect, have been institutionalised did not feel provocative so much as descriptive.

In contrast, the notion of a body of experimental work existing outside or alongside these institutional structures, seemed to present a way of preserving a distinction that the term “avant-garde” no longer clearly marked. Whether that distinction was real, exaggerated or simply a product of perspective is harder to say now. What felt at the time like a developing two-tier system, between academically sanctioned experimentation and work that remained outside those channels, might, in hindsight, have been less stable and more permeable than it appeared.

The sense that certain kinds of experimental writing were included within academic discourse, while others were excluded (whether for reasons of style, background or disposition) signified a real anxiety about legitimacy. Even if the boundaries were never as clear as they seemed, the feeling of their presence was significant.

From The Avengers to Line of Duty: How UK TV Became Police Procedural

The Freeview TV channels in the UK are a goldmine of TV nostalgia. Each day they show repeats of the the crime-adventure shows made by ITC Entertainment, a company run by Lew Grade that aimed to make UK TV shows that appealed to both UK and US audiences.

As a child in the 1970s, I would watch repeats of these shows. They included Danger Man, The Saint, The Avengers, The Baron, The Prisoner, Department S, The Champions and Randall and Hopkirk. Shot on 35 mm film these shows were presented in a stylish and imaginative way, creating a world that seemed vast and exciting and full of visual flair, exotic locations and imaginative storytelling.

Edwin Astley who wrote most of the theme tunes and scores for these shows, apart from The Avengers, The Champions (he wrote the score only) and The prisoner, gave these shows added drama and energy. I was always surprised that after the 1960s he didn't write any more TV music.

Then in the early 1970s, UK TV began to dispense with these sorts of shows in favour of more realistic and gritty police procedural ones. Though earlier TV shows such as Z Cars and Dixon of Dock Green were already realistic to some extent, it was not until shows like The Sweeney (shot on grainy 16 mm film) that this approach began to dominate.

The dominance of the police procedural continued through the 1980s with Juliet Bravo, The Bill and Inspector Morse, into the 1990s with Prime Suspect, Cracker, Wycliffe, Dalziel and Pascoe, Silent Witness and A Touch of Frost, and carried on into the 2000s and beyond with Heartbeat, Midsomer Murders, Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, New Tricks, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Waking the Dead, Line of Duty, Lewis, Broadchurch, Happy Valley and countless others. And though Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes had a fantasy-based premise, their execution remained firmly realistic.

While police procedurals have their own merits, there is something inherently stifling about an unbroken stream of detectives, case files, paperwork, and routine investigation, week after week, year after year—without the flair, imagination, or sense of adventure that made the ITC show so brilliant.

Seeing these older shows again on Freeview is not just nostalgia but a reminder that television used to thrill and inspire.

Was Heathcliff Really a “Laskar”?

In Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, the character Heathcliff is called a “laskar” as an insult by members of the upper-class Linton household, representatives of refinement and gentility. In early nineteenth-century Britain, “laskar” was an imprecise term referring broadly to non-European sailors (often South Asian, Middle Eastern, or Malay), but in everyday usage it had already drifted toward pejorative generalisation. It connoted poverty, roughness, moral inferiority, and foreignness rather than a precise ethnicity. Like many insults of the time, its force lay less in accuracy than in social positioning. In the novel’s context, “laskar” functions not as a literal racial description but as a classed and xenophobic slur, marking Heathcliff as socially inferior and an outcast.

This mode of description is not unique to that term. Heathcliff is also described as a “gypsy lad”, a phrase which, like “laskar”, has sometimes been read as ethnically literal. Yet in early nineteenth-century usage, “gypsy” frequently functioned as a loose marker of social marginality, vagrancy, lawlessness and dark appearance rather than as a precise ethnic designation. Its use participates in the novel’s wider pattern of metaphorical othering rather than clarifying Heathcliff’s genealogy. Heathcliff is repeatedly described in terms that blur the human and the inhuman (“dog”, “imp”, “devil”, “brute”), none of which are intended literally. Together, these labels form a vocabulary of exclusion rather than a set of biographical clues.

In recent years, Brontë’s use of “laskar” has been read literally by some commentators, who infer that Heathcliff was of Asian heritage. Yet if Heathcliff were unmistakably of Asian descent, the novel’s silence on this point would be remarkable. The narrative voices (Lockwood and Nelly Dean) are observant, judgemental and unafraid of detail. When Victorian novels foreground racial difference as a defining trait, they tend to mark it unmistakably. Brontë, however, never provides a clear physical description that would settle the matter. Instead, she layers metaphor upon metaphor: darkness of hair, darkness of temperament, darkness of origin. This suggests deliberate indeterminacy rather than evasion. Heathcliff’s “darkness” is moral, emotional and symbolic long before it is possibly racial.

A socially degraded, non-Asian Heathcliff fits the novel’s logic more comfortably than a clearly racialised one. The central transgression of Wuthering Heights is class violation. Heathcliff’s eventual rise in social and economic status provokes the terror and revulsion of the Lintons. He offends them not because he is racially “other”, but because he refuses to remain in the place assigned to him by the British class system. This reading also explains how Heathcliff can accumulate wealth, enter drawing rooms and command legal authority. Such upward mobility would have been socially and legally constrained for most colonial subjects in early nineteenth-century Britain, and the novel gives no indication that Heathcliff overcame those specific barriers.

Brontë was not writing social realism; she was writing Gothic tragedy. Heathcliff is not a sociological case study. His origins are unknown and his background and identity remain mysterious. Describing him too clearly would diminish his symbolic force. By allowing terms like “laskar” to operate between description and insult, Brontë ensures that Heathcliff remains a projection screen for fear, prejudice and cruelty. The novel is less interested in what he is than in what others do to him once he is seen as an outcast.

It is entirely plausible, and arguably textually stronger, to read Heathcliff as non-Asian, with “laskar” functioning as a generalised insult rooted in class contempt and xenophobic psychology rather than literal ethnicity. Brontë’s genius lies in refusing to resolve the ambiguity, allowing Heathcliff to remain a mirror for both societal prejudice and the imagination of the reader.

The Unrealistic Promise of the Second Amendment

In American politics, the Second Amendment is venerated as a foundation for personal freedom. For many US citizens (mainly on the right-wing of the political divide), the right to bear arms isn't just about self-defence, but about safeguarding personal freedom. The idea is that an armed population is essential to protect against an overreaching government. But in today's world, where advanced technology and military strength have shifted the balance of power, this argument no longer holds water.

In theory, a well-armed population could act as a check on government power or tyranny. But that theory was born in an era when the United States had to rely on militias, not fighter jets or drones. Nowadays it’s impossible to take that argument seriously. No matter how many guns people own, they stand little chance against the overwhelming force of the modern US military.

The US military is one of the most powerful in the world, and has technology that is superior to anything a civilian could match. Tactical nuclear weapons, stealth bombers, drones and fighter jets would render any resistance movement powerless. A group of civilians armed with hunting rifles wouldn’t stand a chance against the precision and reach of military aircraft, able to take out targets from miles away.

Also, today’s military can shut down communications and disable power grids, cutting off access to the tools needed for any coordinated resistance. Without communication and electricity, the fight would be over before it began.

So, when we look at the Second Amendment today, we can’t help but wonder if the argument for its role as a safeguard against tyranny is more a fantasy than a feasible reality. In the age of modern warfare, where the power of the state is nearly limitless, the the idea of armed civilians standing up to the government is, for all practical purposes, an impossibility.

‘How Beverley Turner Found a Home on Right-Wing TV’ by Ryan Soames—guest blogger

For the majority of her media career, Beverley Turner was remarkably uncontroversial. Her politics, insofar as they were visible at all, were mainstream and largely unremarkable. What changed was not a sudden, internal ideological "awakening" but the pushback she encountered from specific corners of the UK media and public when she began criticising COVID-19 lockdown measures, and the choices she made in response.

Turner first drew significant backlash in 2021, when she appeared as a guest on ITV’s This Morning. She clashed with presenter Dermot O’Leary after claiming that COVID-19 vaccines were not fully effective and suggesting that younger people might consider refusing them. Following the segment, she was reportedly banned from returning to the programme. A subsequent appearance on the Jeremy Vine Show sparked hundreds of Ofcom complaints. Turner later shared a video of herself crying, describing the experience as being “ambushed”.

These episodes highlight the reputational risks of dissent in mainstream media. Yet Turner’s response was not merely defensive: she eventually moved to platforms like GB News, which amplified opposition to COVID-19 measures and rewarded a more confrontational, oppositional style.

Media ecosystems are not neutral; they shape incentives, tone and identity. Once embedded within a partisan environment, a broadcaster is rewarded for alignment rather than nuance. Over time, heterodox positions can solidify into coherent ideological identities. Turner’s trajectory illustrates how structural incentives and personal choices intersect: while she faced pushback, she also embraced and cultivated the reactionary, grievance-driven style rewarded by sympathetic platforms.

Her early opposition to lockdowns evolved into a broader posture of institutional hostility, and in recent months, she has publicly expressed views that align with far-right talking points, such as supporting Donald Trump uncritically, and supporting his controversial use of ICE agents in Minneapolis. These choices show that she is no longer a marginal figure caught in a media vise; she is an active participant in a polarised, ideologically extreme discourse.

This process reflects a recognisable sequence:

1. Moral exclusion or public backlash in response to controversial positions.

2. Opportunities in partisan media that reward outrage and reinforce identity.

3. Adoption of broader ideological stances, often amplified by audience and platform incentives.

Turner is less an anomaly than a case study in how personal choices interact with structural pressures. Early ostracism does not excuse or justify her current views, but it helps explain the pathway by which dissenting voices can become entrenched in extreme positions. The lesson is not about her as a victim; it is about how polarised media environments create conditions where extremes thrive, and moderate voices are either pushed aside or radicalised.

Beverley Turner did not begin her career as a far-right figure. She has, however, chosen to embrace that role. The structural pressures of media ecosystems may have shaped the trajectory, but her current ideological stance is the result of conscious alignment, not mere circumstance.

‘From Analyst to Advocate: The Polarising Journey of Matthew Goodwin’ by Robert Miller—guest blogger

Matthew Goodwin, a former academic and political scientist, who held a professorship at Kent University, and is now a presenter on GB News, has had a career that has not been without controversy. 

Critics accuse him of being an advocate for populism's more extreme tendencies, with many questioning the objectivity of his work in that field. They argue that his interpretations of data and trends are often overly simplistic and tailored to fit a particular narrative, lacking the nuance required to fully understand complex political phenomena. These concerns are seen as casting a shadow over his contributions to the field, suggesting that his work might prioritise sensationalism over scholarly rigour.

A contentious aspect of his career is his shifting stance on immigration. In 2013, he argued that Britain had extensively debated immigration and that further stoking of public anger would destabilise the political system. This position was in line with calls for a balanced and measured approach to immigration policy. 

However, a decade later, he reversed his position, advocating for a more aggressive anti-migrant campaign and urging the government to mimic the hardline stance of US Republicans. This volte-face has been criticised as pandering to xenophobic sentiments and abandoning earlier calls for moderation. The shift has been viewed by some as a response to the increasing influence of nationalist and populist movements within British politics, as well as a strategic move to align with the more radical elements of his audience.

In his book Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics, he argues that the UK’s elite is disconnected from the conservative instincts of the majority and that cultural institutions are dominated by cosmopolitan values that suppress dissent. His framing of these issues often aligns with reactionary identity politics, which critics argue distorts the true nature of Britain’s socio-political landscape. Of this, Oliver Eagleton said in The New Statesman on 25 March 2023:

“When setting out these positions, Goodwin often sounds like a duller Piers Morgan. Yet, unlike Morgan, he tends to obscure his most unpalatable opinions behind a dense thicket of polling data—distancing himself from their pernicious implications by informing us that this is simply what the average Red Wall voter thinks.”

Eagleton notes that while Goodwin acknowledges economic factors in the rise of populism, he primarily frames it as a cultural conflict between traditionalism and progressivism, often subordinating class issues to national identity. By emphasising cultural liberalism as the primary driver of populist sentiments, his analysis is said to overlook material grievances that have equally influenced political outcomes. This approach has sparked debate within the academic community, with some scholars arguing that it oversimplifies the relationship between economic hardship and political radicalisation. His critics argue that this perspective fails to account for the nuanced ways in which economic factors and cultural values intersect, thereby limiting the potential for comprehensive solutions to the challenges posed by populism.

Given these concerns, Goodwin’s influence in the field of political science is not without its challenges. His evolving stance on key issues, such as immigration, and his tendency to emphasise cultural rather than economic factors in his analysis have raised questions about the consistency and objectivity of his work.

His approach, which often aligns with reactionary viewpoints, suggests a potential prioritisation of sensationalism over nuanced understanding. As a result, these factors impact the perceived credibility and scholarly value of his research.

Sleep as a Rehearsal for Death

I’ve been thinking lately about dreamless sleep. Not the dreaming state, but the period where nothing at all is experienced. I think that state has something important to tell us about death.

Most people who don’t believe in an afterlife fear death because they fear “annihilation”: the idea of becoming nothing, of there being nothing after. Yet, when we look at it rationally, that fear relies on a strange assumption: that there will still be someone there to experience the nothingness. In other words, it asks us to imagine ourselves existing in a state where we cannot exist, which is paradoxical.

Dreamless sleep is the closest thing we know to genuine non-experience. When we wake from it, we don’t remember darkness, absence or being in “nothingness”. We are aware only of a discontinuity: one moment we are awake at night, the next we are awake in the morning. The interval itself is not experienced at all.

This shows that non-experience cannot be experienced. The fear of annihilation depends on imagining ourselves enduring nothingness, but dreamless sleep demonstrates that nothingness is not an experience in the first place. It cannot be feared, it cannot be remembered and it cannot exist as a conscious state. It is a kind of absolute neutrality, beyond the reach of thought or sensation.

Interestingly, we already practice “dying” every night when we sleep. We lie down, let go of control and allow consciousness to dissolve, without fearing annihilation. In sleep, we surrender ourselves to a state of non-experience that is nonetheless essential to life.It is a small rehearsal for what awaits us at the end of life, a reminder that the cessation of awareness is not inherently terrifying.

This does not, of course, remove all the fears surrounding death. We feel sadness at leaving loved ones behind, regret unfulfilled ambitions and have anxiety about the process of dying itself. These fears are understandable because they belong to the living mind: to consciousness that cares, hopes and remembers. But it does remove the specific terror of annihilation: the imagined torment of being trapped in nothingness. That fear only arises if we assume that non-experience could somehow be experienced, which is a logical impossibility.

Viewed this way, death is not an experience waiting for us at the end of life. It is the end of experience itself. What troubles us belongs to the living mind, on this side of consciousness. Beyond that, there is nothing: no fear, no awareness, only the absence of both. And perhaps that is not something to fear, but something profoundly simple: a return to dreamless sleep, which we pass through each night.

'The New York Post's False Claims About Renee Nicole Good' by Robert Miller—guest blogger

Recent coverage in certain outlets, including a New York Post article, has painted a distorted picture of Renee Nicole Good, the Minneapolis mother tragically killed by a federal ICE agent on 7 January, 2026. A careful review of reporting from multiple reputable sources shows that many claims in that story are unverified or false.

Renee Nicole Good, age 37, was shot during an ICE enforcement operation in south Minneapolis. She was a mother of three and a poet, with no known history of violent activism. Federal authorities assert the shooting was in self-defence, while some local witnesses have questioned the circumstances. The investigation is ongoing.

Debunking the False Claims

1. “Anti-ICE warrior” and “trained to resist federal agents”

The Post described Good as a militant activist trained to confront ICE agents. There is no evidence from credible reporting to support this. Family members and community sources describe her as a compassionate parent, not an organised protester or militant. No public records or independent reporting confirm that she received any formal training to resist law enforcement.

2. Involvement through a charter school pushing activism

The article claimed Good became involved with ICE Watch through her child’s school, which it described as politically radical. Reliable reporting confirms that the Southside Family Charter School emphasises social consciousness, but there is no evidence connecting Good’s school involvement with organised resistance to ICE operations. This appears to be speculative and anecdotal.

3. Organized confrontations and calls to violence

The Post alleged that ICE Watch and aligned groups encouraged barricading streets or ramming ICE vehicles. Independent sources confirm that some community groups monitor ICE activity, but there is no verified evidence that Good participated in violent actions, and claims of systematic coordination are unsubstantiated.

4. Claims of a 3,200% spike in attacks on ICE agents

The article cited a dramatic increase in vehicular attacks against federal agents. No government or reputable independent sources support this specific statistic. It appears to be an exaggerated figure not grounded in verified data. 

While the circumstances of Good’s death are still under investigation, the confirmed facts are: she was killed during an ICE operation, she was a mother of three and accounts of her actions immediately before the shooting are disputed. Assertions about her being a trained activist or participating in violent anti-ICE campaigns are unsupported by evidence.