[Quincy Lehr]

Don't know if this was Nemo's "never mind," but Menashe is one of those poets of a certain generation who seems to feel that his age and experience give him the right to be... a bit of a bastard sometimes. (I met him when a poem of mine angered him at a reading, he started heckling me, and I gave out to him afterward.) He generally expects you to know exactly who he is, and he seemed a bit hurt when I met him (well, tore into him for being a douche when I was trying to read) that I didn't immediately clock who he was.

If I recall, though I only got second-hand reports in Ireland, he was a prima donna when he read for MM, the gist of it being that he threw a hissy fit that he wasn't being paid (no one was, ever, and we never promised such), and that his groupies had to pay cover at the venue (which was one of those art spaces that had to pay rent, electricity, etc.). He generally treated Ray Pospisil (who was hosting at the time) like a servant (apparently something of a pattern for old Sam), and even managed to insult him from the stage a few times. To add insult to injury, Menashe's acolytes pissed off after Menashe read, with half the program to go. (MM readings sometimes lasted as long as two hours, by the way.)

Does this make the guy a bad poet? No, though some good poems aside, I've never been that enamored of his work. I mean, he's fine as a poet, I guess, but the level of acclaim he's gotten (mostly abroad) for years frankly baffles me. And there's a difference between being hard-nosed and assertive and being a self-important a$$hole who treats those "beneath him" with open contempt. We remember these things in New York.

Quincy