a turning · Sep 14, 10:28 AM · mid-morning

Think of the degree to which prose styles with built in grammars of persuasion service the pretense of exhausting the subject. If one avoids this pretense, if the subject is questionable or constantly shifting or densely complex, there is the risk of frustrating the reader who has been trained by the cultural marketplace to expect attractively packaged exhaustion. Every element of style is saying, Don’t worry, there’s nothing more to it than this.

—Joan Retallack, The Poethical Wager

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