Gail is the best living American satirical poet I know, male or female. It is a mystery to me that she isn't as well known and well loved as Wendy Cope is in the UK. I attribute that failure of recognition not to her gender, though (for Sam Gwynn is also not widely known and also excellent in that field) but to America's general disdain for humorous verse. Someone like Billy Collins is allowed to be funny and wildly popular because he writes in free verse, the only acceptable form of contemporary poetry to the vast majority of Americans who care about poetry. We're never going to see another Ogden Nash or Dorothy Parker in terms of general appreciation until the prejudice against writing in form is broken and works like Gail White's are published in popular journals, the way Parker's and Nash's were.
Susan
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