Thread: Pete McLaughlin
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Unread 04-18-2021, 03:00 PM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Thanks for that Max. I found this story.


https://goodtimes.sc/cover-stories/u...ory-pete-poet/


I thoroughly enjoyed the poem. The fantasy Collins' perfect lifestyle is very funny. It really captures the ambivalence a lot of people have about him, I think — finding him smugly annoying yet maybe secretly wanting to be more like him. Not jealousy of his success so much as his being an all round aw shucks good guy who is impossible to dislike. And so by disliking him it makes you dislike yourself a little bit. And he even has the temerity to be a self-deprecating good sport! Grrr…ha

Quote:
Pete, bouncy with nervousness, told me he had written a poem called “I Wish I Was Billy Collins,” a uniquely Pete mashup of gentle mockery and honest homage, and had actually put the poem in an envelope and mailed it off to the bestselling poet himself. Billy–outdoorsy poster boy of the New Yorker-and-NPR set–had written Pete back. And he’d sent a funny, implicitly approving note! Which as a matter of fact, Pete could pull out and read aloud right then and there for us!
Such a terrible shame about the poet. You just never know.

Last edited by Mark McDonnell; 04-19-2021 at 12:33 AM.
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