Monday, June 1, 2009

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quote from the CPR (Contemporary Poetry Review) website:

—The reviewer, Kathleen Rooney, is writing about several books of poetry published by rocknroll stars, including Billy Corgan's "Blinking with Fists." It's a very interesting piece in its entirety, but here's the bit that struck me:

"Not merely . . . bad, but blatantly irresponsible, both politically and artistically, Corgan's book demeans him, FSG [Farrar, Straus and Giroux], and poetry as a whole. The already abysmal quality of his writing appears to sink even lower when one considers that Corgan is, on FSG's list, in the estimable company of Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Paul Muldoon, Bill Knott, and John Ashbery, not to mention Rilke, Lowell, Lorca, Bishop, and Brodsky."

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—Ever play that game, 'What doesn't belong and why?' If you're going to make such a list, Heaney Walcott Muldoon Ashbery et al, what you shouldn't do, if you want anybody to take it seriously, is include the name of a nullity, a naught-but-nothin', a nobody, a nonentity, a nil, a nix, a nope-ster, a nom de nonce of nihility, a nit-what, a Knott, right?

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