steepholm

I do find myself drawing a distinction between kinetic art and the non-kinetic sort, though I hope not with that insufferable prig Stephen Dedalus's value judgements. For me, kinetic writing is the sort that is libidinously exciting, and leaves you feeling almost physically bereft of the characters at the end of the book. The non-kinetic maybe very intellectually and aesthetically stimulating, but it doesn't do that. Kinetic writing issues in the fan impulse, and the non-kinetic doesn't. This doesn't map onto literary / genre distinctions very well, but I think that "genre" writers more often aim to excite their readers in a kinetic sense, and "literary" types often self-consciously avoid it. But I don't think it's anything to do with quality as such. Scott is nearly always kinetic, and Nabokov hardly ever is; Joyce rarely is, Dickens quite often is. Shakespeare's histories almost all are, certain of the comedies and none of the tragedies -- tragedy is non-kinetic, I think, and then I think of Richard II, really a tragedy, but supremely kinetic. You'd think that lyric poetry isn't kinetic, and mostly it isn't. But Wyatt, Blake, Keats. (Why am I not mentioning any women here? Huh.)

I also find Person of Colour a bit odd, for its echo of "coloured", and would prefer when I can to be more precise about ethnic origin, but as you say, not my call.