[Julie Steiner]

I'm sure that many members of this forum have solicited, or been solicited to write, jacket blurbs for books of poetry. And all of us have been in the position of reading such jacket blurbs, as consumers. So, I'd love to hear what others think of the following article by Joan Houlihan:

The Sound of One Wing Flapping:
The Art of the Poetry Blurb
http://webdelsol.com/f-bostoncomment.htm

[Richard Wakefield]

Julie:
Before I click my way over to the post, I can tell you something of my experience. When something of mine turns up on a book jacket it has usually been lifted from a review, sometimes with liberal use of ellipses to make me sound a whole lot more enthusiastic than I really way. Once in a while, though, someone asks me directly for a blurb, and so far I've been lucky in never having to choose between friendship and honesty.
Richard

[Susan McLean]

In my experience, contemporary poetry is usually the Emperor's new clothes, and the blurb writers are the tailors telling people what they ought to see. I tend to agree with Joan Houlihan's experience of blurbs. These days I trust nothing but my own reactions. If I like the actual poems, after reading around in them extensively (in a bookstore or library) I will buy the book. I used to go to a lot of poetry readings by people I didn't know, just to expose myself to a wide range of what is being written now. Some of the writers were well known, but most of them had won some awards or they would not have been published in the first place. After a few too many mind-numbing readings, I adopted the practice of tracking down a book of the poems (in the library) before attending the reading. I now attend a lot fewer readings, though I will still go out of my way to get to one by a poet I admire. There are too many styles of poetry for anyone to like all of them, so I have accepted the limits of my own taste and forged ahead from there.

Susan

Interesting topic. Haven't had time to do more than skim the article referenced, so feel it would be unfair to comment on the sample poems and blurbs cited therein. However, it strikes me that an over-generous puff does a poet no favours when it comes to journal reviews. Some reviewers seem more eager to tear strips off the blurb writer than to examine the poems dispassionately. Margaret.