Thursday, September 24, 2009

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from today's Harriet blog at the PoFound:

Rebecca Wolff

Name That Goon

It took me about two seconds to name the unexpected speaking voice of poet/critic/professor Joshua Clover as I flicked past the NPR station. I flicked back. He was being interviewed because today he’s going on strike! Or at least walking out. We wish him well.

09.24.09

...

I don't read my horoscope every day, but happened to notice today's: "Your offbeat sense of humor isn't always totally appreciated . . . "

so I didn't Harriet my immediate response to the above,

which was to make a few jokes:

Couldn't UCal make up for the budget cuts by jacking up the price of all the poetry books published by UCal Press?

Clover's "The Totality for Kids" for example could be raised from 45 dollars to 145 dollars!

The extra revenue would surely solve their cash shortfall . . .

It's interesting that UCal Professor Clover's book of verse is published by UCal Press . . . is that part of his contract, do you think? Talk about sweetheart deals.

(Many incarcerates of California's educational system probably couldn't locate their state on a US map, so I doubt they would understand the meaning of the word, "nepotism.")

....
Speaking of raising the price of poetry books,

Stanford University Press is about to publish the Collected Poems of Larry Eigner,

which will cost you 150 dollars if you want a copy—

I wouldn't pay 1.50 for it myself, but—

Eigner is another one of those avantpoos whose books nobody but a niche wanted to read when he was alive,

who is now purportedly rescued from his (well-deserved) obscurity by the usual elitist scammers—

students at Stanford are presumably happy to fork over the dough to pay the costs of this extravagant Eigner boondoggle . . .

Universities which lavish their money on wasteful prodigalities like this Eigner book, deserve to have their funding slashed—
....