I found that a really good read. This paragraph stood out to me and mostly summarizes how I felt reading the article. Perhaps there was no high road to be taken here, but as unsatisfying as it is to reward Hudson—a poet who, in the parlance of literary criticism, acted dickishly—Alexie did the right thing. His admiration for the poem didn’t change. What changed was that he was forced to detail and rationalize the way he reads and what he reads for. And it’s the way, frankly, that many of us read, regardless of background, identity, or politics: we bring our own dreams or baggage to bear upon whatever we have chosen to lay our eyes on. We might abide by different critical cues, but we are all looking for something. And when culture turns into an extended game of “gotcha,” it can be an act of self-preservation to assume that everyone is always acting in bad faith.