Poetry
 

Why is everything in the October issue terrible? Is this the mark of the new editor? Am I just in a bad mood?

I don't know about your mood but it looks pretty terrible to me. I hate people droning on about difficult poetry for a start. What happened to easy poetry like Keats and stuff?

I was going to comment but anyone can click that link and find comment enough.

Hm, should I feel even worse then, to be rejected this issue? :o

The Reverdy translation by Lydia Davis is pretty cool.

Yes, to the Reverdy.

Nemo

Not at all, Janice. Salon de Refuses and all that. There should be an accent of some sort there.

I must confess to loving this letter:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poet.../letter/246536

I don't love it because it's right, but because it's wrong in such a way as to illustrate something that's terribly wrong with American poetry--its adherence to fairly irrelevant (and certainly outdated) struggles. As for the issue as a whole, I thought the poems by dead people were good.

Poems by dead people are always best. Except in our cases, Quincy. And some Spherians here and there.

What language! I'll bet the bloke's a little person.

The letter is a lot of fun. I enjoy anything attacking the insufferable Michael Robbins.